Darkness in Dentech City
by Last Samurai Ryu-san
Summary: Crossover with Castlevania. What happens when the former World 3 agents accidentally release an ancient evil known as Dracula? We'll have to see, won't we? LanMaylu, MegaRoll, and a few other pairings. Please read and review.
1. Another Day, Another Problem

Darkness in Dentech City  
  
By Last Samurai Ryu-San  
  
Summary: My first MegaMan fic. Set in NT Warrior universe. X-over with Castlevania. It's another normal day and Lan and friends put up with school, homework, and boredom. But what happens when Maddy, Yahoot, Count Zap, and Mr. Match go searching for something in the mountains and end up accidentally disturbing the grave of a certain vampire named Dracula? Big trouble for Dentech, that's what! Enjoy, y'all!  
  
Pairings: Lan/Maylu, MegaMan/Roll, light Yai/Lan, possible Maddy/Match, Chaud/OC later on.  
  
Ryu-san: Ok. This is my second fic I posted on FF.Net. Anyways, I thought I'd try doing a crossover. I hope everyone likes this one.  
  
Chapter 1: Another Day, Another Problem  
  
'Sigh... I am soooo bored...' thought a brown-haired teenager named Lan Hikari. He sat with his chin in his hands, listening to the boring lecture by the teacher, trying not to get in trouble by daydreaming. But boy, is that hard, trying not to fall asleep to the lecture... He'd almost wish for another attack by his arch-enemy, Dr. Wily of World 3, or any of the new NetTerrorists, like Grave. But he isn't that desperate or stupid.  
  
Sitting next to him is Lan's best friend, the red-haired girl, Maylu Sakurai. She and Lan had been friends since practically infancy. But back to the present. Like Lan, she was bored, but she busied herself by taking notes, which she knew Lan would need later to copy down. He's too busy trying not to fall asleep. She quietly giggled at the drowsy look on Lan's face. 'How adorable...' she thought, trying to hide a laugh.  
  
Meanwhile, in their PET's, MegaMan and Roll were sick and tired of the 'boring as hell' lecture, as MegaMan would call it, and decided to play some online games together, using a wireless link since Maylu and Lan were sitting close together. "Haha! I win!" Roll cheered, grinning and laughing. The blue NetNavi standing before her groaned. "Roll-chan... Gimme a break" MegaMan moaned, kinda surprised how good Roll's becoming at the games. "Hey! You've been kicking my butt for a long while now. I think it's time you start kissing it" Roll countered, flashing a cute smile at him. He knew she was kidding around with him. Like their human partners, she and Mega have been close friends since they met. But that's not counting when she was infected with the Dark Empress Chip at the N-1 Grand Prix tournament...  
  
"And to think you always win against the likes of GutsMan or World 3..." Roll mused. "I'm beginning to think that you're taking it easy on me" she added, winking at him. "Naaah... You're getting very good at these games. I need to shape up on it" he answered, giving her a thumbs-up. "Why thank you, Mega" she said, even more cheerful than ever, if that's possible. "Speaking of which, I'll have plenty of time, since the NetTerrorists haven't shown their ugly mugs around Dentech for months now... Wonder what's up with that..." he inquired, thinking about the last time Wily or Grave sent out a squad of viruses.  
  
"Oh I don't know. But let's enjoy the free time we have, shall we? We can still have fun" Roll said, trying to get him to play another game. "True. Wily probably gave up after PharaohMan very literally blew up at him. Now let's play again. This time, I'm gonna win" he declared, answering the female Navi's challenge.  
  
  
  
Far away from the boredom that is school, deep in a cave somewhere in the nearby mountains, four tough-looking thugs were exploring, as if looking for treasure. These four were formerly henchmen of World 3. But after PharaohMan destroyed Wily's base, they decided to become 'treasure hunters', aka thieves. "Are you sure that the contact you met in that Giga Byte Tavern said that the rare chips of the old days are in here? I got a date tonight an' I don' want this damp, messy cave to ruin my hair" complained Maddy, an attractive, but evil, pink-haired woman, looking like she's in her late teens or early 20's. "So the lass fin'ly got 'erself a date, eh? A sign that ye stopped wit' the bitchin' mehbe? Hahahaha!" boomed Mr. Match, a red-haired Scotsman with enough muscle to take on 20 fighters at once. "Hey! You arse! My bitchin's how I got the date in the first place!" Maddy snapped, her fluffed pink ponytails shaking in rage, as are her fists. "Guess not then" snickered the pyro.  
  
Suddenly, the sound of an electric guitar blasted through the cave. The rock musician, Count Zap, stepped in, the offending instrument in hand. "Ya can stop with the arguin' now. You two are actin' like a bad rock band playin' in a riot" he said, grinning at them. "Are you certifiably nuts, man!?! This cave could collapse!" Maddy yelled, jumping on Zap and shaking him violently. "I agree wit' 'er! You're really startin' to be hazardous to our health, lad!" growled Match. "Enough, all of you!" said the fourth figure, a ridiculously thin old monk, Yahoot. "We must all focus on the mission instead of a group Seppuku (ritual suicide)"  
  
"But he started it!" Maddy groaned, pointing to Match. "Me, lassy!? You're the one who kept complaining about **_hair_**, of all things!" the Scot rebutted. "Well, what about him?" Maddy said, glaring at Zap. "Don't look at me! All I did was try and stop the argument" the musician defended. "By trying to kill us?!" Maddy snarled. "Heh. I pity the guy who fell for ya, lassy. You'd have him whipped in 10 seconds!" joked Match, laughing. "Don't start it again, hot head! At least I got myself a date, unlike some Scottish pyromaniac who couldn't get a girl even if it was St. Patrick's Day and he was wearin' all the lucky green he could find! And another thing, you leprechaun chasin', bagpipe playin', 'top o th' mornin'' dork, I have a name! It's Maddy! Mad-dy! Can ya even try to say my name?! Or are your brains so small that you can't comprehend the concept of names!!?" she roared, totally fed up with all of them, especially Match. "How dare you...! I can... What... Why you little...!" Match stammered, completely overwhelmed by Maddy's 'nuclear' explosion. Yahoot just slapped a hand to his forehead, sighing at the stupidity of his teammates and friends. He felt lucky that FireMan, WackoMan, and ElecMan were asleep in their PET's. "Hey! I said shaddup!!!" Zap snapped, playing another loud riff on his guitar.  
  
"Not again!" Maddy shrieked, covering her ears. "You're worse than me uncle Blaze's bagpipe 'talent'!!!" yelled Match, his ears nearly bleeding. Yahoot didn't appear affected by the noise, he was more affected by the disappearing ground which he fell through. As more ground collapsed, the other three thieves fell and followed the monk down the newly created hole. Yahoot managed to break most of the fall by bending himself into the shape of a ball. Maddy bounces back and forth on the rocks, messing up her clothes, her body, and, more importantly to her, her hair. Match kept trying to get a handhold so as to not suffer a harsh landing at the bottom of the pit. Unfortunately, he ended up with bruised and bloody hands. Zap, knowing that resistance is hopeless, just hung his guitar on his back and braced for impact.  
  
Around a mile down, they all landed with loud thuds, except for Yahoot who just bounced himself to a stop, perfectly unharmed. The others crawled to their feet, envious of the old monk. "Why the hell aren't you beaten up, like us?" snapped Maddy, trying in vain to fix her wild, wavy pink hair. "It is because of my training. This is the importance of the task of releasing your minds, my friends. You should learn it someday" was all the extremely flexible man said as he looked around their crash site, lighting a lighter he conveniently had, in case their flashlights were broke or lost. "Feh. Looks like your mind hasn't come back yet, you ol' monk..." Maddy grumbled under her breath.  
  
The dark area, big enough to be a medium-sized room in a luxury hotel, looked oddly in order, as if something was supposed to be placed here. The only exception to this was the rubble made by Zap's rockslide and small stones and rocks lying around from cracks in the ceiling. At the other end of the room, there were some sort of stone crafts, a pair of 4 sided, pointed pillars, both with strange runes marked all over them, placed a good distance away from each other, and a podium-like stone, rectangular shaped and risen to waist-level. The podium had what looked like a dark plaque on it. The room itself was quiet, except for the drip drip drip of water, coming from somewhere in the room.  
  
"Hmm... Curiouser and curiouser... These markings are certainly strange" inquired Yahoot, getting a closer look at the plaque stone and the two pillars, a look of intent on his face. "What the heck is this?" Zap asked, looking around the dank room. "Sigh, I dunno... All I know is that my date won't like me lookin' like this..." Maddy moaned, causing the others to fall down. "Oh not that again! You need a haircut anyway!" snarled Match, furious by now. "Want me to set your hair on fire...?" Maddy mutters, sneering evilly at the big Scotsman. But before yet another argument could break out, Yahoot's PET went active and MagicMan suddenly appeared on the monitor. "Hold it, all of you! I sense something about this thing, even from inside this PET... This thing, whatever it is... It's made of old magic. Centuries-old by what I can tell..." he said, a gravely grim tone in his voice.  
  
"Old magic, huh? How do we activate it? Abra Kadabra? Hocus Pocus?" remarked WackoMan, the legless clown bouncing around on his huge polka- dotted ball. "It's gotta be Open Sesame then..." said FireMan, mocking WackoMan's joke. "What? You'd think I'd get it wrong?" the clown asked, hurt. "No. I just know that you joke 100% of the time, so we can never rely on your ideas, clown" the fire elemental explained, for once calm. WackoMan groaned. "So what do we do? Activate this?" asked Zap, tapping a pillar with a fist. "Maybe. Why don't we ask the living encyclopedia of magic, MagicMan?" sneered ElecMan, electricity pulsing through the Navi's body with curiosity.  
  
However, MagicMan was already at work at trying to figure out the mystic runes and odd markings of the old altar...   
  
  
  
It was about this time when, back at Dentech Academy, Lan's class let out for lunch. "Finally...! I was this close to snoozin'..." groaned Lan, practically sleepwalking out of the classroom with Maylu. "You need more sleep, Lan" giggled the redhead, ignoring the light glare that came from the bandanna-wearing teen. "Need more sleep... Feh. If I could, I'd sleep til' noon..." he grumbled, trudging after her.  
  
The minute they got outside, they spotted Dex, Yai, and Tory together at a nearby table, talking about recent net battles. "...used the ElectroSword battle chip to slice the poor Navi to shreds! That cool or what?" Tory ended, excited about the last battle he saw at the local arcade. "Hey, guys" Lan said as he pulled up a seat for Maylu and then sat himself down. "Yo, Lan. Tory was just tellin' us about this prodigy of a NetBattler he saw yesterday. Said that he could be as good as you or Chaud sometime soon" Dex said, his mouth obviously full of food. "Yeah. But I still say that Lan's better than Chaud" said Yai, throwing the mentioned boy a smile. "Yeah, well..." he said, not knowing what to say. "C'mon, Lan. You kick some serious butt, yet you don't make MegaMan go through any cold- hearted, 'boot camp'-style training, like Chaud forces ProtoMan to do. That's an A in my book" Maylu said, playfully messing up Lan's hair. "Way to tell 'im, Maylu" said Roll from her PET, smirking for some reason. Lan blushed, really not knowing what to say when 2 girls compliment him.  
  
"Heh. Check out Lan the Player. Scoring with 2 beautiful girls and he gets all flustered" joked Tory, snickering all the way. This sent Dex into a minor rant, but he quickly calmed. "I envy you, man. I seriously envy you. Ya got 2 babes clinging off ya and everything..." he started. "Dex! I don't cling on Lan! Jeez!" Yai steamed, jumping up and down in annoyance. Maylu just giggled. "But... Ya earned that. You and MegaMan helped beat World 3, PharaohMan, and Grave, you and Maylu rescued Yai from a hot place once, literally, and... well let's just face it, you're the only one out of this group who's nice enough to endure Mesa's lectures about fish with the least amount of complaints!" the owner of GutsMan said, the last comment giving everyone a good laugh. A minute or three later, everyone was winded and their faces were as red as Maylu's hair. "Yeah! You might moan and groan, but you wouldn't even throw in one fish pun against him, ya big softie" Tory said, trying in vain to stifle some last snickers. "Guts needed earplugs for fish guy lectures. Guts pity Lan the Enduring One." GutsMan guffawed.  
  
"I get it, I get it... Jeez... And these are my friends..." muttered an annoyed Lan, groaning and taking a bite out of his sandwich. "Oh Lan, Lan, Lan... That was a compliment" Maylu replied, smiling at her best friend. "Like a quote from Shrek is gonna get me in a good mood..." he paused for a good 10 seconds. "Coming from you, Maylu-chan, it does" he finished, grinning at her. "Really..." said MegaMan. "Really really" Roll answered. "Speaking of Shrek, anyone remember the time when Shrek 2 opened and we all dressed Dex up like that ogre?" Yai asked, a sinister grin on her face. "YAI!!!" snapped Dex, remembering the image of him with green body paint, ogre ears, and ragged clothes. "Not funny!" he added, just as everyone else burst out laughing again. "If that's not funny, what about when we had him mimic Shrek's accent?" That comment from Lan caused the heroes' laughs to be heard from the other side of the school.  
  
"I got to admit, seeing Dex as Shrek made me glad I'm not green and fat" said Glyde, a sweatdrop forming on the back of his head. "Please don't mention the part when they forced Chaud to come as Donkey... He was so mad, I felt the blows he gave Tory..." IceMan said, remembering the beatings Lan's rival gave everyone with his 'hooves'. "Whew... I remember that... That's the first time I've heard of an ass kicking ass..." MegaMan joked. "Oh, real good one, Mega..." Roll got out before she laughed.  
  
And so, lunch went by with everyone chatting and making plans for after school. But elsewhere, trouble was soon about to put a dent in those plans...   
  
  
  
Mr. Match, Maddy, and Count Zap, along with their Navis, were almost asleep until MagicMan suddenly came out of his trance. "Ah ha! I got it! I know what the runes mean!" he called, waking everyone up except for Yahoot, who was meditating while waiting, of course. "Really? Cool..." yawned Match. "Gimme 5 more minutes, daddy..." muttered a dozing Maddy, tossing and turning. "My NetOp has no patience..." griped WackoMan, feeling embarrassed for her. "Look who's talking, Mr. 'Why-Don't-We-Play-Tag'" scoffed ElecMan, smirking in amusement. "C'mon, woman. Wake up before you say something even more embarrassing..." said Zap, using his foot to get Maddy going. "So what is it, MagicMan?" asked Yahoot.  
  
MagicMan focused his energies before reciting an old forbidden spell...  
  
"_Lord of the Night, King of the Vampires.   
__One who is blessed by the Darkness, one who is cursed by the Light.   
He who was banished by the Light, shall return with the Darkness.   
To bring evil and chaos to all, in the name of Dark Lord, Dracula.   
Let the defeated rise again, and the savior fall to sorrow!!!"_  
  
As the wizard Navi chanted the evil mantra, the pillars began to glow with a dark energy. The black darkness pulsed through the pillars, sending bolts from one pillar to the other and back. The runes on the podium also glowed a grim black and then they morphed into English before disappearing. Just as the runes disappeared, the ground began to shake, freaking out the 4 ex-villains. "Wha...?! What's happenin'!" Match yelled, trying to stay on his feet. "Does it look like I know, Match!? It sounds like someone cranked up the bass!" countered Zap, watching the pillars pulse with black energy.  
  
"I got one thing to say now... RUN!!!" Maddy shrieked, trying frantically to climb the rock wall back up to the cave they dropped in from. The others agreed, Yahoot being the calmest about it. Maddy went up first, followed by Match, then Zap, and lastly Yahoot. "Yaaaahhh! Why did MagicMan have to activate that?!" Maddy yelled as she climbed. "I only did what you all wanted! Jeez!" snapped the mage Navi. "Next time we find some ol' magic thingy, let's not activate it unless we know wha' it does, ok?" Match butted in, having a migraine from all that's happening. They were halfway up when all the sudden, the glowing pillars shot bolts at each other at the same time, colliding at the center and clashing with a burst of power. After a dark flash, a jet-black portal was formed, evil pouring out of it like a torrent. The foursome reached the cave and began running out when something began to claw its way out of the dark vortex.  
  
5 minutes later, the four finally reached the exit, with sunlight and fresh air. However, that didn't stop them from running, since the ground was still rumbling from whatever magic that was activated. "What... the heck... was that?!" Zap panted, running downhill. "I dunno... Wha'ever that was... it wasn't good..." Match answered. Another 2 minutes and they reached the bottom of the mountains, a few miles away from Dentech City. Panting, they looked back at the mountains.   
  
  
  
Somewhere in Dentech, the sky-blue-haired psychic known to most people as Miyu was walking back to her store, her fortune-telling abode. That was until she suddenly froze in place, her mind going wild, as well as her crystal ball, which she always carried with her. "Wh...What is this? I'm sensing something... Something which should have never occurred!" she gasped, her eyes wide open, as if looking death in the face. "I... I have to do something! Otherwise... Oh, I don't even want to think of the consequences!" she stated frantically. If she was seen by anyone that knew her well, like Lan and his friends, they would have said that they had never ever in their lives seen Miyu so panicky before.  
  
Miyu ran to her new motorcycle, parked in front of her shop, and drove off quickly. She knows that she has to do something, even if it'll help at the slightest, to undo what should not have done...   
  
  
  
Back at the mountains, a geyser of black power burst straight upward out of the high rock, like a beacon of evil. It was like someone had shaken a giant bottle of champagne too much and then popped the cork. From their position, the ex-henchmen of World 3 felt like the evil was flooding their minds, as if trying to drown them in darkness. Maddy was so terrified by this strange anomaly, she actually cowered behind Mr. Match, blubbering about how she won't be able to live to go on her date. Mr. Match was, for once, speechless. The pyro just stared at the rising power, not moving nor speaking. Count Zap started to have hallucinations about something trashing Dentech City. "Oh God no! Help! Somebody help this poor guitarist!" Zap screamed, running around in circles. Yahoot felt the bleak darkness invade his mind also, but with his monk training in mental concentration and focus, he wasn't affected by it. But he only said one thing amid the cowering and screaming of his friends...  
  
"MagicMan... What have we done...?"  
  
End of Chapter 1  
  
Ryu-san: Well, looks like things are looking grim already, at least for the former World 3 agents. What's Miyu so scared of? What came out of the black portal created by MagicMan? And will Lan and co. find out what's going on before it's too late? Stay tuned for Chapter 2 of Darkness in Dentech City, "What A Psychic Fears...". Peace, y'all.


	2. What A Psychic Fears

Darkness in Dentech City  
  
Ryu-san: Thanks for the good reviews. Glad y'all like this so far. So I'm gonna keep going. But first, I'm gonna answer a few review questions...  
  
Jill- The Belmonts aren't gonna make any appearance yet. They might later on. So far, Lan and MegaMan are gonna play the 'Belmonts' of this fic, assisted by some of their friends.  
  
DemonPrincess34- I read your fic and I gave a review with some pointers. I do hope that helps you. I'm glad you like my fic.  
  
Windwingxs- You'll see what happens to Lan and co.  
  
And now, on with the story! But this chapter is mainly about word of Dracula's return going around. I'll put in some action near the end. But still, I hope everyone likes this anyway.  
  
Disclaimer: I forgot this in Ch. 1, but not this time. I don't own MegaMan or Castlevania or any other anime/game/movie references I use. I'm just (legally) borrowing the characters for a while.  
  
This chapter is rated PG-13 for language and a couple of sexual jokes.  
  
  
  
Chapter 2: What A Psychic Fears...  
  
Somewhere in Dentech City, there is a secret headquarters. In this headquarters, 3 superheroes meet and plan strategies, plans, and counterstrikes for any and every situation. However, the meeting room looks like it could seat a lot more than just 3 people, with its huge 0-shaped table and the many chairs. But why complain about that? At least it's not a janitor's office. That's what Commander Beef (A/N: Weird name for a superhero, huh?) keeps thinking whenever he thinks that the table's just too big for such a small number of heroes.  
  
At the moment, Commander Beef was lounging in one of the many seats, his feet placed comfortably on the table as he leaned back and took a bite out of a fish stick. "Ahh, yeah... Nothin' like a peaceful moment for lunch..." he said to himself, pleased that for once there was no crazy situation involving World 3 or any of the other NetTerrorists. As soon as he finished his lunch, he leaned all the way back in his seat and relaxed, starting to doze off.  
  
That was until Mysteriu (a.k.a. Miyu) burst into the room... "Commander Beef!!!" she cried, sounding oddly frightened. The sudden yell was enough for Commander Beef to accidentally make his chair fall backward, causing him to roll back until he hit the wall. "Ow! Dang it, Mysteriu! What the heck're you yellin' for!?" Beef snapped, slowly getting up. "Sorry, Commander..." she said, bowing in apology. "So what is so important that you had to come yellin'?" the Commander asked, rubbing his sore head.  
  
"I just got this premonition... A terrible one... One that concerns the safety of the world. I think we oughta be prepared for this one" she explained briefly. To Beef, she still sounded oddly freaked out, which doesn't usually apply to her personality at all. "Ok... Even though there's almost always a problem dealin' with the world's safety these days, you got my attention. What have you sensed this time?" he asked, now using his serious tone. "Well... It has to deal with an ancient and powerful evil that was sealed away long long ago. To be precise, it was 1797 (A/N: The year when Symphony of the Night took place.) when it was last defeated and sealed" she began. "What? That long ago? Wow..." Beef mused, trying to imagine what the 1700's looked like. "Yes, Beef. Anyways, the evil I speak of has escaped a little less than an hour ago" Mysteriu said, now starting to sound like her calm self. That stopped Beef from thinking about the last millennium. "Escaped? You sure?" he asked, beginning to understand why Mysteriu was so frightened. "If you had looked out the window facing the Dentech Mountain Range an hour ago, then you would've seen a beam of darkness shoot out of one of the mountains, going into the sky. This dark beam disappeared after a few minutes" she responded, giving him a look that silently said 'What? You dare deny my senses?'. "Ah. I see" Beef uttered, knowing that look on her face.  
  
"Anyways, there are enough eyewitnesses so that the occurrence will be on the news tonight. So that means we'll have to do something before the ancient evil starts causing some chaos" Mysteriu finished. "Hmm... I guess we should investigate. Can't let an evil like that go unchecked. By the way... What exactly is this evil?" Beef asked, realizing that he doesn't know what he's up against. "A vampire lord named Dracula. He's more powerful than he sounds" the psychic answered, a grim look on her face.  
  
Suddenly, Blackrose (aka Sal) entered the room. "Hey, Beef. Checking in, like usual. Huh? Mysteriu? Why'd you show up early?" she asked, wondering about the psychic's presence. Usually, Mysteriu would arrive at the same time as Blackrose. Beef went to get their weapons and gear ready for scouting while Mysteriu explained everything to the flower woman...  
  
  
  
In the streets of northern Dentech City, there were 4 people who appeared to be in really bad shape. One of them, a red-haired Scotsman, was mindlessly carrying a young, pink-haired, cute girl like a sack of potatoes. Unfortunately, she was babbling nonsense about a date and something trying to kill her. There was an old monk who walked beside the stupefied Scot. He seemed to be the one that appeared the most normal out of the group, despite the fact that he is bone-thin and can bend his body into insane proportions. However, he carried a leash, which was attached to the last member of the group, a guy who looks like a member of a bad rock band. Sadly, he was running frantically from an unseen terror and yelling nonsense about something attacking the city. "Sigh... My friends are still affected by the darkness that emerged from the mountains... I have to get them back to our hideout safely" said the monk, Yahoot.  
  
A few blocks later, they come to an apartment complex. Just as they reach the stairs, the Scotsman seemed to regain his mind. "Huh? Wha? What th' hell just happened? And how'd we get home?" Mr. Match asked, looking around. "I walked you guys home, since you 3 were hit with the dark energies that emerged from that portal" answered Yahoot bluntly. Mr. Match could see what the monk was talking about with Count Zap, the insane musician on a leash, and Maddy, the scared young woman on his shoulder. 'This is crazy... A power so dark an' evil, people go temporarily insane by bein' in its presence... Sigh... Look at th' lass... She looks so scared an' weak... Completely different from 'er normal self. If th' affect wares off on 'er now, she'd prob'ly beat me up. Heh' he thought, taking pity on the girl who had bashed him with her temper an hour earlier. 'And check out Zap... Th' guy's gone mad, I tell ye... But then again, he was crazy before th' dark got to 'im. But this is fright'ning...' he added, trying to drone out the guitarist's mad ramblings.  
  
Yahoot unlocked the door to their apartment and threw Zap in before he could scream again. Then, he walked in, a silent Match following, still carrying the cowering Maddy. "Just take her to her room, Match. I'll try and get Zap to shut up" said Yahoot, already forced to wrestle with the crazed musician. "Right" was all the pyro said, taking the woman to her room. "Argh! What a horror this day turned out to be..." he muttered as he entered the room, trying not to imagine what they had gotten themselves into...  
  
  
  
2 hours later...  
  
There was absolute darkness. The bleak, quiet, hopeless nothing surrounding her. "Hello?" Maddy finally asked, wondering if she'd gone blind. Silence. "Hello?" she asked again, growing inpatient. Again, no response. "IGNORE ME, WILL YA!!!?" she demanded, beginning to think that someone was playing a prank on her. "Mr. Match! I know you're tryin' to play me! This ain't that Punk'd show! Turn on the freakin' lights!" she snapped, trying to walk around. However, she suddenly realized that she was floating in midair. "What the?! I'm floating? What's going on...?" she asked herself, now starting to freak out.  
  
She then heard a sound. A second later, she heard it again. "Huh?" she uttered, straining to hear what the noise was. "Maaaaaaddyyyyyyy..." the noise slowly whispered. It sounded like escaping gas from a busted pipe. "Yeah? What do you want?" she responded. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a demon-like head appeared and streaked toward Maddy at a rapid speed, its jaws open and ready to kill.  
  
"Kyaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!" Maddy yelled, sitting up, panting like she just ran 10 miles. Looking around, she barely realized that she was in her room. "Wha... wha... what? What happened...?" she gasped, trying to calm down but failing. Again, she looked around, almost expecting something to attack her. But nothing did. Instead, she found Mr. Match asleep on a chair next to her bed. Her heart finally calmed down a little, now that she knew that one of her friends was there. "Mr. Match...?" she said, wondering why he'd even spend 5 minutes in her room, much less fall asleep in it. She got no response, except a snore or two. "Hey Match" she tried again, poking him a few times. Again, he's still dozing. Already mad, she grabbed a megaphone and put it against his ear. "I SAID HEY!!!" she shouted, causing Match to jump up and hit his head on the ceiling. "OW!!! Aye, lassy! What th' hell ye do that for?!!!" he yelled, collapsing to the floor, ears nearly bleeding. "You were sleepin'" she replied, annoyed that he called her 'lassy' again. "I know. I was keepin' ye company because ye were hit by that wave of dark energy. I know sayin' this might endanger me health, but b'cause of that, ye were actin' pretty scared, like a li'l girl" he explained, expecting her to snap at him again. But for some reason, she didn't. "Was I really...?" she said, sounding like she has a lot on her mind. "Yeah... So after we got back, I was takin' care o ye while Yahoot was trying to take down Count Zap, who went completely insane. I fin'ly got ye to sleep, at least. So I decided to take a li'l nap meself" he said, after a yawn.  
  
"Oh... You know, that's the first time you actually did something nice for me, even though I totally blew up at you earlier..." she said, actually amazed that Match would actually be good for something besides cannon fodder against Lan or Grave. "Well, I guess that's my way of makin' it up to ye, Maddy. 'Sides, I'm used to ye bitchin' at me anyway" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Oh... Well, that's ok then, I guess..." she said, at least glad that he finally started to use her name. "So what was it like, bein' hit by that energy?" he asked, curious. "It felt... really strange... Last thing I remember was seeing that dark beam... Then, I was floating around in nothingness, like I'd ceased to exist... I tried getting someone's attention, but all I got was some ugly demon head attacking me... Then, I woke up..." she explained, still jittery about it.  
  
"Ya know, that's almost th' same thing I went through, except for th' demon part. Instead, there was this strange mist that tried to suffocate me. Then, I woke up in front of our apartment buildin' with ye on me shoulder, actin' all freaked out. Really odd..." he explained. "I'm beginning to think that whatever came out of that portal is more dangerous than we think..." Maddy said, a worried expression on her face, for once in her life. "Argh! We never should've had MagicMan open that stupid thing and release wha'ever was in there!" Match snapped, frustrated by everything that happened. "Just great! If temporary insanity was just from that thing's entrance, I can't even imagine what it could do to th' city or even th' world! We're royally screwed and it's our fault!" he added, repeatedly slamming his head against a wall.  
  
"Match, calm down. We'll figure something out..." Maddy said, in a soothing tone which none of the former World 3 agents have ever heard from her, the most short-tempered member of the group. That tone alone stopped Match's raving. "Eh? Was it just me... or were ye actually consolin' me...?" he asked, looking at her as if she'd just grown another head. She gave him a light glare, annoyed that he's actually amazed by this. "Oh stop it, Match... I can be calm if I wanna" she huffed.  
  
Just then, a normal Count Zap entered with Yahoot behind him. "Oh man... You two won't believe what happened to me back there. I was hallucinating about some huge bat-like thing destroyin' Dentech City... It was horrible, like a heavy metal band playin' acoustic instruments..." he shuddered. "We had similar nightmares..." Maddy answered, more freaked than ever. "I believe we have to do something to reprimand this problem before we're to blame for the world's destruction" Yahoot calmly said, trying to cover up the fact that he too is scared out of his mind by the possibility that the world may end...  
  
  
  
15 minutes later...  
  
"Oh yeah! School's out!" Lan shouted, doing backflips down the hall. The brown-haired teen's antics were enough for Maylu to laugh at him, also glad that school's over for the day. "Lan, you're causing a scene" she said between giggles. "So? I do this every Friday, remember?" he said, grinning at her. "Yep. Today's Friday. So how about we go to the arcade and meet up with Dex and the others. I heard that Yai-chan's got an upgrade for Glyde that she wants to show off" she suggested, smiling at him as she grabbed her PET. "Ok, Maylu-chan. So how's Roll?" he asked, noticing the PET in her hand. "Roll? What're you up to?" Maylu asked, looking into the monitor and seeing that MegaMan had somehow warped into her PET. "Nothing. Just watchin' NetCity TV with Mega" the pink Navi responded. "Oh yeah. You got an e-mail from Tory. It's strange though... He says he saw something come out of the mountains a couple of hours ago, like some sort of black beam... Wonder what he meant..." Roll said, trying to think of how a black beam coming from the mountains can be a normal occurrence. "Could Dr. Wily be behind this? Or maybe Grave?" Lan asked, trying to use any obvious explanations. "I dunno... It's too mysterious" Roll responded, her thinking getting her no answers.  
  
"Oh well. Maybe Tory's a bit stressed out. It is a Friday, you know" Lan said, putting Tory's sighting out of his mind. "Yeah. Friday is the day when most humans are tired out from work or school, Roll-chan" explained MegaMan, playfully giving her long blonde ponytail a few tugs. "Hey! Mega!" Roll responded, tackling Mega. "I told you to stop messing with my hair! It's not a rope!" she added, giggling as she sat on MegaMan. "Alright already... Jeez, Roll" he said, trying to kindly push Roll off of him. Their NetOps just laughed, enjoying the little show. "Alright! On to the arcade!" Lan said, racing Maylu to their favorite hangout. Maylu used her scooter to zip ahead of Lan. "Hey! That's cheating!" Lan laughed, running faster. "I know!" she responded, teasing him by sticking out her tongue. "Maylu!" Lan groaned, knowing that she's messing with him. 'Sigh... That's one thing I like about her... She loves to kid around sometimes, just like me! Heh. Some of me must be rubbin' off on her' he thought, smirking as he chased after his best friend.  
  
A few minutes and a thoroughly taunted Lan later, they reached the arcade. "Just in time" Yai said, absolutely beaming with excitement. "Now that the Late Brigade have arrived, what's this upgrade already, Yai?" Dex asked, getting more and more inpatient. "Ok, guys. You know how only MegaMan could do Style Change, right?" Yai started, grinning from ear to ear. "Yeah..." the group said, following along. "Not anymore. Thanks to AyanoTech's extensive Research &Development team, there is now a way to duplicate Mr. Hikari's little 'pet project'. And now Glyde can Style Change too. Looky" she said, jacking in her Navi into the nearest arena. "Ready, Miss Yai" said Glyde, ready for whatever style she chooses. "Alrighty! Glyde, Style Change, HeatGuts Style!" she commanded, watching Glyde change into a bigger, more muscular version of himself.  
  
HeatGuts Style Glyde was, indeed, bigger. His skin (if it could be called that) and armor turned from yellow to flame red. He also gained a few feet in height, making him taller than even Dex's GutsMan. His arms and legs gained some muscle while his right hand gained a GutsMan-like fist. Lastly, his wings increased in size and were spread out so that they made an X shape. "Ha! Top this, MegaMan" sneered Yai, as if ready to fight all of World 3 at once. "Should've known. Once Mr. Hikari invents something, it doesn't take AyanoTech very long to find something to mimic it" Maylu sighed, impressed with Yai's new advantage. "Could MegaMan even beat Glyde now if they both went into Style Change modes?" wondered Tory, trying to imagine what IceMan in HeatGuts Style would look like. "Yeah! This should really help us in the fight against Grave" Dex whooped, jumping around the arcade, once again making a fool out of himself. "Uhhhh... Yeah... As I was saying, now it is possible for Style Change to be available for most NetNavi's, thanks to AyanoTech" Yai bragged, her grin back on her face. "And since you all are my best friends, I'll give your Navis the first Style Change upgrades ever released for free" she added.  
  
"Cool!" said Tory, accepting one from her. "I'm gonna be the Ice King! Woohoo!" IceMan said from the PET. "Thank you, Yai-chan" Maylu said, bowing graciously to her. "I can't wait to see Mega's reaction to my new forms" Roll mused, an image of a musclebound version of herself in HeatGuts Style coming to mind. "Whoa! Maybe not that Style..." she added. "Yai, you're our guardian angel!" Dex bellowed, snatching his upgrade. "Uhhhh..." GutsMan uttered as an image of him in Shadow Style appeared in his mind. "Guts too big to dress up like ninja..." he figured. Yai walked up to Lan, still wearing a smile. "Lan, you already have the Style Change ability, but you're also counted as one of my best friends" Yai said, smiling at him. It could've been his imagination but judging by her tone, Lan got the impression that Yai was subtly trying to flirt with him. "Thanks, Yai-chan" Lan said, suddenly remembering Dex's comment at lunch about the headband- wearing teen having 2 girls, Maylu and Yai, clinging off of him. He then smiled at her and decided to chat with her about battlechips and Style Changes, not knowing what else to talk about.  
  
Then, something caught Tory's eye on the television hanging on the corner. "Guys, look! That's the energy beam I was telling you about!" he said, watching as Ribbita recapped breaking news about some black beam of energy emerging from the mountains, an image of it behind her. "My, this looks so bizarre... I'm not sure, people, but this could be either a coincidental phenomenon or the beginning of an evil plot by NetTerrorists. Anyways, it seems that I have an eyewitness who claims to have been mentally affected by this odd anomaly. Incidentally, the eyewitness happens to be Mr. Match, former World 3 henchman. So what did you come all the way down to my li'l pad to tell us all, Mr. Match?" said Ribbita, turning to the huge Scotsman sitting next to her. Lan and the others were watching, now wondering if World 3 was behind the black energy. "Good afternoon, Dentech citizens. I came down here to warn ye all... There be a great evil approachin'... Ye must believe me, despite th' deeds I have done in th' past, workin' for World 3. I know about this b'cause..." Mr. Match said, explaining what happened when he and the others were in the mountains a few hours back. Lan and the others didn't know whether to believe him or not.  
  
"...an' when we got off th' mountain, we saw that black energy beam shoot up into th' sky. That's the last thin' I remember before blacking out. But that's not all... Th' darkness took hold of me. I don' know how it did, but it did. So there I was, floatin' in nothin'ness, when this fog came and tried to kill me. Next thin' I knew, I was home. I'm tellin' ye, I ain' kiddin'. Somethin' evil's about to show itself. I don't know when, but it will" finished Match, getting the distinct feeling that the thousands of Dentech citizens are thinking and/or saying 'yeah, right' at that very moment. "Uhhh... Yeah, right... Sure... Ehehe... Security!" cried Ribbita, wanting to get the 'psycho' as far away from her as possible. "But I'm tellin' ye! I'm not jokin'!" he pleaded, suddenly going up to the camera so that his face filled the screen. "Everyone! Listen to me! It may be our fault, but just remember that we former World 3 agents had th' decency to warn ye of our mistake!" At this point, guards were dragging him off. "Oh come on! It's comin', I tell ye! Be on guard! Ow! Hey! Don' hit me there! OWWW!!! Not in me... balls..." halted Mr. Match's rant as he was dragged off, caused by a guard exploiting every man's weakness, a swift bone-breaking kick to the crotch.  
  
The group was silent for a good 3 minutes, amazed that Mr. Match would do such a stunt. Lan broke the silence. "Decency, huh? Since when were they decent? I'm not sure what to make of this... Could World 3 be up to something again?" he asked, trying to get his now-silent friends to talk. "I don't know, Lan. He did sound pretty serious to me" MegaMan said, thinking of what advantage the Ex-World 3 agents would gain from this. "Maybe they're trying to cause a citywide riot and then when everyone's running scared, they launch an attack and steal everything" Maylu suggested. Yai got to thinking as Maylu was suggesting her thoughts. "Possible... But I don't think that's their forte... They're more into sneaky stuff, like what they did during the first N-1 Grand Prix, not falsely warning everyone, especially not with a hoax like that one. Besides, they like to go after battlechips and upgrades, not cash and merchandise" Yai figured, her excitement over AyanoTech's latest development having been lost since Mr. Match appeared on TV. "I'm thinkin' that there's actually a possibility that Match could be telling the truth. Slim, maybe, but still a possibility" she added, straining her brain to think of what strategy was in play.  
  
"It's so difficult for Miss Yai to strategize sometimes. It's puzzles like this that usually give her a huge craving for strawberry milk. And I mean a really huge craving..." Glyde thought out loud, sighing. "How huge?" IceMan asked, imagining Yai drinking an oil drum full of strawberry milk. "Glyde, have my servants bring out a 5 gallon vat of strawberry milk when I get home..." said Yai, stumped. "5 gallons!!! Holy addictions, Batman!" IceMan said, falling flat on his face in surprise. "Does she really drink that much milk or does she swim in that stuff?" asked MegaMan, as stunned as IceMan. "Yes, she does drink it. It may take her a while, but she loves the stuff. "Well... At least it's good for ya" said Roll, lightly snickering. "Uhhhh... Wouldn't Yai get stomachache?" said GutsMan stupidly. "I dunno, Guts, but it's still a lotta milk..." Dex replied, staring at Yai.  
  
"I dunno what's more strange. Mr. Match's warning or Yai-chan's stomach..." Lan whispered to Maylu, who giggled. "Small girl, huge appetite, I guess" the redhead whispered back to him. "Ok, so what do we do about this? We know World 3's up to somethin' again, even though they don't work for Wily anymore" Dex said, having had enough of mind-benders and weird cravings. "I dunno. Maybe we should wait and see what happens. For one thing, what if Match was right, for once? Don't wanna end up letting our guard down because the warnin' was kinda out there" Lan said, all fooling around aside. "That's true..." said Tory.  
  
"Look, y'all. Lets just get back to the games and we can worry about this later. We just have to be more alert for now, but lets not bum ourselves out over what could be nothin'. Besides, I wanna see what your Style Changes look like" said Yai, trying to bring everyone out of the slump they dug themselves into.  
  
The others agreed and they began NetBattling until dinner time, putting World 3 in the back of their minds.  
  
  
  
"They didn't believe me and they broke me nuts!!! What's it look like to ye?!" snapped Match when Yahoot asked him how the interview turned out. He was hopping in place, still clutching his sore balls. "Ribbita broke your nuts??? Heh. And that's something that I thought I'd end up doing..." snickered Maddy, trying to hide her laughter as she created a mental image of the frog girl kicking him in that 'delicate area'. "She did not! Her studio's guards did! Owwww!!!" the Scot groaned, now rolling on the floor in pain. "And then I got thrown out and had to limp painfully across town to get back here..." he added, pounding his fist on the ground in agony.  
  
"Now that's what I call givin' out a bad rap..." stated Zap, shaking his head slowly at his friend's fate. "I am guessing that almost everybody believes that Dr. Wily is up to something again?" asked Yahoot. "How should I know, man!!?" Match snarled, thinking that he was asked the dumbest question ever. "Alright, you... Let me take care o ya. You seem about as mad as I usually am and that ain't normal... But then again, neither is that thing we released..." Maddy said, dragging the injured pyro to her room. "Maddy, what're you thinkin'!? That means you're gonna...!" Match said, realizing that he'd have to strip for her to do anything with his injury. "Yeah, I'm gonna! So what? Just payin' ya back for you takin' care of me while I was zoned out" answered the pink-haired beauty, not fazed by the naughty thoughts beginning to form in her head. "B..but wha' about ye date tonight?" he stammered, trying to drown out his own thoughts about Maddy as a hot nurse. "Forget about it. Besides, I could tell he was one of those morons who only cared about how hot the girl is. I don't need that kind of abuse right now nor ever" she said, waving it off like the trivial matter it was. She pulled him into her room and then slammed the door, leaving behind a surprised Yahoot and Zap.  
  
"Uhh... Did she...?" asked Zap, stunned that Maddy was actually willing to take care of Match's balls. "Yeah..." Yahoot replied, calm as always. "Does that mean...?" asked Zap. "Uh huh... She likes him" said Yahoot as he sat down, bent himself into a twisted position, and started reading the newspaper. "And are they gonna...?" Zap asked. "Maybe, unless Match needs some time to heal or they still have a lot on their minds..." the monk responded, flipping a page. "Either way on that last question, that bloody Match is pretty lucky then. Hahaha! Rock on, dude!" the musician sneered, grabbing his electric guitar and playing some chords of a Metallica song, annoying the heck out of Yahoot.  
  
But Yahoot, annoyed as he was, suddenly had a thought about everything that happened in the mountains. 'What if this is the calm before the storm?'  
  
  
  
At the Dentech Mountain Range, Commander Beef, Mysteriu, and Blackrose climbed down the newly formed hole, a feeling of fear creeping into their hearts. "This is the place, eh?" observed Beef, jumping down another few feet with the help of his rope. "Yes... It is" answered Mysteriu, oddly quiet as she descended. "Good thing I brought a flashlight..." said Blackrose, shining her light downward as she followed her fellow heroes.  
  
Just before 5 minutes passed, they finally reached the bottom of the pit. Blackrose shined her light all around the area, which looked like a good place for some sort of gothic ritual, with an altar, a podium made of stone, 8 huge, black suits of armor, and 2 rune-covered pillars. "Now we're getting' somewhere. What do you make outta this, Miyu?" Beef asked, not moving toward the altar. Miyu moved close to the altar and stood, looking around intently, her gaze a calm one. "Yes. This was indeed the resting place of Count Dracula. And judging by the aura that my crystal ball is picking up, the magic is still hanging around, spent, as if someone used this altar recently for magic. Yes... Count Dracula has escaped... Hmm? What's this...? It appears that there is proof that Dracula had a lot of free time on his hands... I sense black magic... It's close..." she was interrupted by a loud screech coming from right above her. She looked up and saw a black, demonic figure dropping down from the ceiling and landing on top of her, forcing her to the ground.  
  
Beef rushed in and landed a drop-kick on the creature, which landed on its feet on the altar wall, between the pillars. Blackrose pointed the flashlight at the strange being and all 3 of them froze as it let out a shriek of rage. One half of it looked human, with 2 human-shaped legs and a normal chest and torso. But the resemblance to humanity ended there. It had 6 arms, each with 3 razor-sharp fingers, black fur everywhere with red markings similar to a black widow spider, 8 green eyes, and venom-dripping fangs. Also, it was 11 feet tall and had a lot of muscle. It was a monstrosity that could be called a Spi-Devil, half-spider, half-human.  
  
"What kinda abomination are ya!?" Beef stammered, disgusted by the 8-limbed creature. "Miyu, are you alright?" he said, remembering that it attacked his friend. "Yeah... Just sore from that thing landing on me..." Miyu panted, the wind knocked out of her. "Sal, take care of Miyu and keep that light on!" Beef ordered, drawing his fishbone sword and slowly approaching the demon, who had gotten off the wall and started toward the trio. Its 6 arms were more than ready to tear its opponents to shreds...  
  
  
  
Meanwhile, 30 miles away from Dentech City and near the ocean, there lay a gigantic old castle that was in desolate ruins until its new owner came and did some... modifications. Now, its structure appears to be built half of metal and half of ancient stone. Despite the metal makeover, the castle now looks as luxurious as it did in its old days of glory. However, as grand as it looks, it has the dark and ominous feeling of something evil kept inside the old place.  
  
And evil did inhabit the old castle, in the form of Dr. Wily. Even if he was not home at the moment, you could tell right off that he took the castle, since he put portraits of himself in almost every hallway, along with the humongous self-portrait in the throne room behind the throne, which Wily was currently sitting on, surrounded by a lot of monitors, like his old base. "Feh... Living alone in such a big castle does tend to make one feel lonely. Argh! If PharaohMan hadn't blown up my base, I'd be perfectly comfortable without those idiots messin' up my plans! Oh well... Least this place'll suit me comfortably for my next plan of attack. Hahaha!" he said, not caring that he's talking to himself. "At least I'm not completely alone. StoneMan! BlasterMan! Status report!" he snapped, as a monitor appeared in front of him. "Yes, sir! We managed to succeed in setting up a network in this old castle. We even did some custom work, just in case we end up under attack by Navis. Now, we are perfectly able to house armies of dark Navis and viruses, as you ordered, sir!" said BlasterMan, proud of his accomplishments. "Good! Keep working on that" Wily ordered before BlasterMan and StoneMan vanished with the monitor.  
  
"I'm finally making progress to recreating World 3, after months and months of delays and issues... Soon, the world shall be mine and mine alone! Hahahahaha!" he cackled, not noticing a huge black bat flying in through the throne room door. The bat flew around, avoiding the 'strange barriers', until it decided to land on the ceiling, eavesdropping on Wily. "Ok... Let's check the schedule here..." the demented boss of World 3 said casually, causing another monitor to appear, this time with a list. The bat was intrigued by this 'wizard' and his 'magic power' to make images appear. "Let's see... 'Rebuild wrecked parts of new base', check... 'Set up World 3 network in new base', check... 'Create new dark NetNavis'... I'll work on that now... 'Resume quest to find and capture ultimate NetNavi (PharaohMan, MegaMan, or ProtoMan)'... Hmm... Later. 'Gather new henchmen and/or allies'... I don't know anybody that'd fit the job as a powerful ally to my cause..." he rambled on, like a human computer. The bat appears to think about what the old human babbled about. It then decides to fly down to him.  
  
Wily was snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed the huge bat flying around his throne. "What the!? Hey! You're botherin' me! Get away!" Wily snapped, grabbing his cane and swiping at the oversized creature, who dodged every blow. "And you're in my seat!" the bat countered, ramming Wily in the gut. "OOF!!!" uttered the mad doctor, doubling over in pain. While bent over in his seat, the bat flew up and hovered there for a second. Then, it flew downward and bashed Wily in the back of the head, throwing him off the throne. "Ow... Beaten by a bat... who can talk?! Am I going senile!?" Wily said, trying to stand. "Nay. You are of sane mind and body" the bat said, settling onto the throne before growing. At least it appeared to grow. In reality, the creature was changing from bat to a human figure wearing all black, including a black cape, which made the bat wings. Like Wily, the human figure also appeared old, with gray hair, a gray moustache, and wrinkles all over his face. (A/N: Just imagine how he looked in Symphony of the Night)  
  
"What the heck are you?!" Wily wondered, wondering whether to be amazed by the old guy's transformation or angered that the aforementioned old guy beat him up as a bat. "I, my friend, am a vampire, one of the damned who live to drink blood and command undead to do their bidding. I go by the name Dracula" said Wily's 'guest', bearing his sharp fangs before continuing. "But do not fret. I do not drink the blood of elder men. I greatly prefer the fresh, sweet blood of young females. I came here because this castle, which you have trespassed and made your own with your strange magics, was originally mine. It was called Castlevania. A grand castle it was, where I commanded legions of accursed dead... until I was defeated and sealed away by a foolish simpleton I should've killed off years ago... Since I finally found my way out, I had hoped to rebuild this castle and try again to throw this world into darkness, but it appears you have beat me to it with your bizarre workings"  
  
"So what if I took over this castle? Finders keepers. Besides, my original base was blown up by a pesky NetNavi by the name of PharaohMan. How else am I supposed to take over the world without a decent headquarters?! Tell me that, Bats!" Wily ranted, waving his cane menacingly. "Eh? What is this 'NetNavi' thing you speak of? Who is this 'Fa-row-man'?" asked Dracula, clearly confused. "What?! What year are you from?!" the doctor said, thinking that everyone had heard of NetNavis by now. "1797 was the year I was sealed away" answered the vampire, now looking at the monitors spread out all over the room. 'Oh. I see. That long ago, eh? Guess I have some things to teach you, Mr. Dracula. But!... If I teach you these things, then you have to agree to be my ally in my campaign for world domination. I know it's a cheap bargain, but I doubt vampires have any use for money. Besides, from what you told me, the world is what you want too, is it not?" Wily suggested, already plotting a scheme in his mind. "Yes, it is. And the idea of joining forces is quite sound, cheap deal or no. With my monsters and your strange marvels, the world shall soon fall" the Vampire King responded, after a minute of thinking. "Well then, let me teach you a few things about something that everyone calls technology. Who knows, you might find some uses for the things that humans have come up with..." Wily sneered, proceeding to one of his many monitors.  
  
As he was teaching Dracula about the Internet, the rise of the NetNavis, etc., he was mentally laughing as all the parts of the plan he was scheming came together to form the greatest plan he had ever come up with...  
  
  
  
Ryu-san: Well, there it is. Chapter 2 of Darkness in Dentech City. Hope everyone liked it. I apologize if there was more Maddy/Match in this chappy than there was Lan/Maylu. Don't worry, you Lan/Maylu fans! Major Lan/Maylu- ness coming next chap.  
  
Coming Attractions: Uh oh! Wily's struck a deal with the devil, so to speak. And that means trouble! Now that Dracula has been taught the ways of the future, what does this mean for Dentech City and its resident heroes? What will the Ex-World 3 agents do to try and correct their mistakes? What can Commander Beef and his sidekicks do to stop the Spi-Devil and escape? And what happens when Lan gets the courage to ask Maylu out for a first date? All this and more in Chapter 3, 'First Date, First Strike', coming out whenever I can write it up. 


	3. First Date, First Strike

Darkness in Dentech City  
  
Ryu-san: Is anybody readin' this? I got a few reviews from Ch. 2. They were good ones, but still, I'd like some feedback from y'all. I'm a new writer on FF.Net and I wanna know what you think of my style here. Otherwise, thanks for reading my fic. On with Chapter 3. And people, this is where the action begins. Also, for 'Maylan' (aka Lan/Maylu) fans, I'll include some fluffiness of that pairing before hell breaks loose. Oh, and I didn't forget you, MegaRoll (MegaMan/Roll) fans. I fluffed them up too. Match/Maddy is the side pairing in this fic, but I'll include some more of that. Something for everyone (except yaoi fans). So anyways, now to start where the cliffy in Ch. 2 left off...  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own MegaMan, Castlevania, The Matrix, or any other game/movie/anime references I use in here. I'm borrowing them for a while.  
  
Rated PG-13 for language and violence.  
  
  
  
Chapter 3: First Date, First Strike  
  
Deep in one of the mountains in the Dentech Mountain Range, there was a strange black ceremonial chamber. Within, 3 humans in superhero outfits are trying to survive against a Black Widow Spi-Devil, a poisonous half- human, half-spider with a killer set of 6 clawed fists and a lethal bite. One of the humans, Commander Beef, strikes the arachnid repeatedly with a steel weapon that looks oddly like a fish skeleton. But the monster fights back by slashing its many claws at the costumed hero, who barely dodges them all. "Whoa nelly! I could use some bug spray here..." Beef said, using his sword to block 4 of the Spi-Devil's 6 punches. The other 2 humans, Mysteriu and Blackrose, checked through their pockets. "Sorry. No bug spray" sighed Blackrose, shaking her head while holding a lit flashlight. "Not me either" Mysteriu said calmly, although she is inwardly worried about Beef. "Dammit! Why is it that everyone always forgets the bug spray when it comes to camping trips!?" the commander ranted, getting pushed back by the man-spider's attacks.  
  
Blackrose decided that it was time for someone to do something. So she ran toward the battle, stepped right in front of the arachnid, and pointed the bright light in its face, hoping to blind it. And blind it, it did. But it seemed to do it too well... The Spi-Devil stopped attacking, shrieking as it tried to rub its now-useless eyes. Beef ran past Blackrose and took the chance, swinging the fishy weapon straight into the demon's side, causing green blood to flow. "Ewwwww!" Blackrose cried as she backed away, disgusted by the creature's plasma. The monster backed off, too distracted by both the wound and the blindness to attack. Beef jump-kicked its head to add on to the freak's heaping helping of pain. A minute of observing the agonizing Spi-Devil passed when they realized that it was permanently blind. "Wow... I didn't think that the flashlight would work that well..." Mysteriu commented, amazed at how simple it was to bring down such a tough-looking demon. "It was born in darkness, Mysteriu. It can't handle any kind of light yet" Beef explained simply. "I knew that..." said Blackrose meekly. "Then, why didn't you do that in the first place?" asked the psychic. "I was scared!" the flower girl snapped.  
  
But before an argument could break out, the Spi-Devil let out a long, piercing scream, deafening the human fighters temporarily. "Arrgh! What the?!" Beef snarled, hands on his ears. "What?!" Mysteriu asked, deaf. "He said, what the!!!" Blackrose replied, yelling. "What?!" the psychic repeated. While they were trying to recover, the 8 black suits of armor began to move, drawing their weapons, which range from giant axes to swords to spears to crossbows...  
  
  
  
"And so that, my vampire friend, is the state of the world as of now. Whaddya think?" Wily asked, grinning, as he finished teaching the Vampire King, Dracula, about the ways of technology. "This 'technology' thing does indeed interest me. I may have an idea on how to use this 'technology', if it's possible..." the old bloodsucker mused, smirking. "Go on" Wily insisted, wondering how the mind of a vampire would work. "Remember how I said that with my monsters and your 'technology' could be of help? How about if we combine the two, giving my minions some of your modern weaponry and enhancements? With the added power, no living man should be able to stop us from gaining eternal power!" Dracula said, cackling. "Just what I was thinking! But I have more to add to that. Ha! We won't just conquer the physical world. Oh, no. We'll take over the Net as well so that no amount of resistance can be formed anywhere! World 3 shall rise once again! But this time, nobody'll know what hit 'em!" Wily agreed, joining in the psychotic laughter. As they laughed, different kinds of monsters began to appear in the huge throne room...  
  
  
  
Back at the dark altar, Blackrose, Mysteriu, and Beef were struggling to fight off the possessed armor as the Spi-Devil was trying to find some way to escape. Beef was crunched between 2 of them, both wielding axes. He silently wished he has another sword to wield. He jumped aside as one of the armors crashed its axe on the ground, where he last stood. He jumped again as another axe fell. "C'mon! How does one beat a giant suit of armor!?" he snapped, trying in vain to think of anything that could put a dent in their advances. He leaped up, quickly climbed the armor, and swung at the head of the closest knight, barely denting it. "Argh!" he groaned, feeling helpless as he stood on its head. He barely noticed the other's axe falling and jumped down, leaving the first knight to have its helmet cut vertically in half, defeated. "Oh man...! Guess they don't care 'bout each other's survival" he observed, finally getting some idea of how to defeat them. "Yo, Mysteriu! Blackrose! Get on their heads somehow! No time to explain, just do it!" he yelled, seeing his friends completely surrounded. He hoped that they had gotten their hearing back. Then, the other axe carrier caught the superhero's attention by attacking him again...  
  
"I'm not sure about this, but..." said the flower girl, trailing off as she jumped from one foothold of the spear-carrying armor to another, dodging sword blows and arrows before she reached the head, leaving the attacked armor battered and broken. The same fate happened to the other spear wielding armor Mysteriu quickly climbed on. As the swords-armors tried to strike downward at them, they jumped from the broken armors' heads and landed on the archers just as the spear-users were cut down to size. Then, the archers were the next to fall to the demented armors. Mysteriu landed on the first swords-armor's arm and ran up it before it could withdraw the sword from its dead ally's neck. Blackrose had to climb up the other's chest. "Man... What's with these guys?! They're crazy!" the flower girl groaned as she reached the right shoulder of the suit of armor. "They're mindless automatons. They can die, but they don't feel any pain. Also, they're pretty stupid. Thus, they can be tricked into bashing each other" the psychic answered, climbing up the side of the other armor's head.  
  
The two swords-armors turned to each other, spotting the girls. They raised their swords. "Ready to jump?" Mysteriu yelled. "Yeah!" replied Blackrose, despite her fear. Right at that moment, the animated suits of armor swung downward. "Now!" cried Mysteriu as they both jumped, barely escaping the impending doom of the giant swords. The helmets of the swords-armors were no more and the armors stopped moving, leaving the last axe-wielder that Commander Beef is still trying to fight. "That was too close, Mysteriu!" wailed Blackrose, who almost peed in her shorts in fear. "I know, I know..." replied the blue-haired psychic calmly.  
  
"A little help here would be sufficient!" Beef called, barely dodging another axe blow. "Coming already!" answered Mysteriu, trying to come up with a game plan. Then, she got one. "To the crossbow!" she said, running to the big weapon which was conveniently pointed close to the direction of the fight. "Alright, Blackrose. Help me aim this thing" the psychic ordered, as calm as always. "Wha? But look at this thing! It's big!" her friend replied, stupefied by her request. "See that armor's arm? We can place the front of the bow on it and then, it's all a matter of aiming for that big freak's head. Now, on 3..." she said, grabbing one side of it, her friend reluctantly grabbing the other. "1... 2... 3!" Mysteriu counted, starting to pull with all her might. Blackrose struggled, but she still tried.  
  
Amazingly, they were able to lift it, if only to waist-height. "Argh...! Left!" cried the psychic as they began slowly moving left with the big weapon. A minute or two later, they managed to place the weapon's front end on the fallen armor's arm, aiming it right at the battle. "Ok... Hey, Beef! Lure that thing a few feet behind ya! Trust us on this!" Blackrose shouted, seeing that Commander Beef is beginning to get slower. "I really hope this works...! I'm gettin' tired here... All this dodgin' is really makin' my bones sore..." he panted as he turned and ran, the armor following him. Mysteriu had her hands on the trigger and waited for the right moment to pull it. "3..2..1.. Now!" she mumbled before pulling the big trigger.  
  
The large arrow was sent flying across the large room. Just as the axe- wielder was about to give Beef the blow that would kill him, it suddenly stopped. Beef stopped and turned around to see the beaten armor with a crossbow arrow lodged deep within the helmet. He was about to let out a sigh of relief when he heard movement behind him and smelled the foul stench of blood. He ran toward the girls as the Spi-Devil, who tracked him with its hearing, dived at him. The arachnid missed and began to get up when the axe-carrying armor slowly fell over like an old oak tree, crushing the man-spider once and for all...  
  
"Well... That was one helluva battle there... Good thing I get a lotta calcium..." Beef panted, glad that the fight was over. "Yeah... That's one way to get an extreme workout. Lucky for us, I've been liftin' weights lately. But still... I am never lifting anything bigger than me ever again!" said Blackrose, anxious to get out of this hole. However, Mysteriu was very grim. "I dunno, my dear friends...I have a feeling that this is only the beginning of what Dracula can do..."  
  
  
  
About a month later...  
  
In Dentech City, all was normal and calm, despite a few failed attempts by Grave to cause chaos. But enough about NetTerrorists... It was a nice, sunny Saturday morning, around 11:15 am to be specific. On one certain street, it was peaceful and quiet until...  
  
"WOOHOO!!!!!"  
  
"She said yes! She said yes! Yahoo! I got a date with Maylu-chan tonight! And I'm not dreamin' this time! Yeah! Score!" a teenage boy named Lan shouted, as if he won the lottery and was the happiest guy alive. He burst into his house, said a quick hello to his mom, and ran to his room to get ready. "And I thought I was loud... Jeez, ever heard of decaf, bud?" MegaMan said, his ears still ringing from Lan's big whoop. "Sorry, Mega. I got too excited. But hey, Maylu said yeah" the teen said, still a bit hyper as he tried to decide whether to change clothes for the date or not.  
  
"Congrats, man. Least with you and Maylu on a date, I can score with Roll-chan tonight. A double date. What do you think?" the blue Navi suggested. "Yeah. That'll work" his human partner answered. "Lan!" someone called from outside. Lan opened his window and saw the girl of his dreams in the window across from his. "Hey again, Maylu-chan" he said, grinning. "I gotta tell ya, ya really gotta change to decaf" she giggled, her ears also slightly ringing from his outburst after she agreed to go out with him. "MegaMan already used that pun. Care to try again?" Lan said, snickering a bit. "Nah. I'm good. So can you wait until tonight?" she asked, smiling at him. "Nope" he answered. "Well, too bad. I'm gonna make you wait. Next time you see me, you won't even recognize me" she said, giving him a wink and a grin before closing her window. "D'oh! Maylu! Jeez... That girl can be such a tease..." he said, still grinning.  
  
"Ha! Can't wait to see if Roll does something for me too" MegaMan said, laughing at his partner. "I dunno. But tonight's gonna be so cool!" Lan said, trying to mentally plan out the date. "First, you'd better calm down, Mr. 'Maylu's My Dream Girl'. The entire neighborhood probably thinks someone won the lottery or something" the Navi said. "Hey! I was excited! You know, there was a chance she could've said no..." said Lan, having had enough of everyone telling him to calm down. "Somehow, I doubt that she'd say no..." MegaMan said, remembering past conversations with Roll. "What do you mean, Mega?" asked Lan, confused by his Navi's remark. "Nothing, nothing... Just being optimistic" responded MegaMan. "Well, thanks for the confidence, buddy" Lan said as he grabbed the PET and left, deciding to see if anyone's NetBattling at the arcade.  
  
  
  
If one had asked Yahoot and Count Zap a month ago if Maddy and Mr. Match would ever fall in love with each other, he or she probably would've gotten laughed at and humiliated. But now, they would say that the Scottish pyro, Mr. Match, and Dentech City's shortest temper, Maddy, are officially a couple. Currently, Yahoot and Zap are bored as Maddy and Match are ready to leave on another date. "Ye ready yet, babe?" Match, who has been waiting for an hour for Maddy to finish getting ready, asked again for the hundredth time. "JUST A FRICKIN' MINUTE, SWEETIE!!!" snapped Maddy from her room, using her patented temper. "Jesus, men are so inpatient!" was heard from her room after that outburst. "Sigh... Women... Why is it that they always take so long gettin' ready for a date?" he asked, defeated. "It's because most girls want to look perfect for their men" explained Yahoot calmly, bent into another crazy position. "Perfect? Th' lass already looks perfect to me..." he said, still not seeing the need for a girl to spend hours perfecting her body. "We know. But she won't come out until she thinks she's perfect. It's kinda like most bands. They won't perform until they've perfected their songs, ya know" said Zap, playing a chord off of his 'axe'.  
  
"Wha'ever. I just want her out here now so we can go on our date already" he said, pacing back and forth. "As you wish, Match" Maddy said, a little annoyed. Despite the frown she had on her face at the moment, she looked stunning. To match her hair color, she was wearing a pink dress which only went down to her knees. It was one of those backless dresses that defined her figure and also revealed some of her cleavage. She also wore pink high heels, a diamond necklace (most likely stolen during her World 3 days), and her purse, which she carried. Her hair wasn't put into those bushy ponytails this time. Instead, she combed her hair and pulled the wild mess of hair down so it flowed down, shoulder-length. As for her face, lipstick and eyeshadow were applied.  
  
"Holy..." Match could only mutter, his jaw dropped at the sight of the naughty beauty approaching him. "Rock... on..." Zap gasped, suddenly wishing that he was Match. Yahoot was so stunned by her appearance, he actually got his own body tangled up. "Uh... Help!" the monk cried, struggling. "Well... Now do you appreciate what I do for you, Matchie-kun?" she said, trying to rub that fact in his face. "Yeah... I do now..." he said, knowing that she's got him there and grinning about it. "Now that you're happy, can we go now?" she asked. "Yep" he said. With that, they left the apartment, leaving a jealous Zap and a struggling Yahoot.  
  
  
  
That night, Lan went to Maylu's and knocked on the door. The mother of his soon-to-be girlfriend answered the door. "Yes?" Maylu's mom said, seeing a well-groomed Lan at the door. He was wearing his usual outfit. "Hey, Mrs. Sakurai. Is Maylu ready yet?" he asked. "She'll be ready in a few minutes. Why don't you come in, Lan?" she suggested, gladly inviting him in. "Thanks" he said, stepping in and taking a seat on a couch in the living room.  
  
"Maylu-chan! Lan's here!" Mrs. Sakurai called from the bottom of the stairs. "Ok, Mom!" came the reply. Lan smiled at this. Usually, when his mom would call for him from the bottom of the stairs, it's usually to try in vain to wake him up for school. A minute later, Lan gasped as his dream girl walked down the stairs. Maylu was wearing a light-red skirt with a dark-red top, a pair of bracelets, and her shoes. Her red hair was done into a bun, making her look cuter in Lan's eyes. The only makeup she had on was lipstick. "M..m...Maylu-chan?" he stuttered, his eyes roaming over every inch of her.  
  
"Hi Lan..." she said, flashing him a smile. "You're lookin' good tonight" she added. "Ah! Thank you, Maylu-chan. And speaking of good- looking people, you look amazing..." he replied, realizing that he was staring. She giggled at this. "It's no biggie. I only dressed up like this to please my guy" she said, giving him a warm hug. "If that's why you're in that getup, then I don't have any problem with it" he snickered, returning the hug. "Well, you kids have fun now. It's nice to see such good friends end up as a couple. It's such a joyous thing..." Mrs. Sakurai said, getting all emotional. "Thanks, Mom" Maylu said, her left arm around Lan's right. "Don't worry. I'll take real good care of her" (A/N: How many times has anyone heard that line in dating scenarios?) And so, Lan and Maylu left, not knowing that they'll end up having one bad night...  
  
  
  
"Roll? Is that you?" MegaMan asked as a hot, familiar blonde, wearing a pink shirt and pink short shorts walked up to him. Instead of one long braid of leg-length hair, her hair was combed back and spread out. "Hey Mega!" she said, pulling him into a tight hug. "Hey... Roll... You're kinda... choking me...!" he gasped, her arms squeezing the wind out of her date. "Sorry..." she said, loosening up a bit. "So... ready for our date?" she asked, grinning. "Yep" he answered, smiling back. "By the way, real cute outfit. Keep wearin' it" smirked MegaMan, giving her butt a playful swat. "MEGA! First, you keep pullin' my hair, now you're spankin' me? My, you're asking for it!" she said, grinning as she chased after him. "Roll! Cut that out!" MegaMan laughed as the two of them chased each other in Mega's PET.  
  
  
  
About a half-hour later, Lan and Maylu arrived at a semi-fancy restaurant and decided to sit at one of the outdoor tables. Lan, being a gentleman, helped seat Maylu before sitting himself down on his chair. Then, they jacked their NetNavis into NetCity for their date. "Well... Here we are... Our first date..." Lan said, nervously looking through the menu. "Yep. Hey, are you afraid of me?" replied Maylu, noticing his fear. "No, I'm not! I don't wanna mess up, that's all..." he said, looking at her. "I know. Me neither. But hey, if we do mess up, we could always look back on it and laugh" she said, smirking at him. "You're right. Humiliating now, funny later" he mused, as a waiter came to take their drink orders.  
  
"So, did anyone ever tell you how cute you are, Lan?" Maylu asked, smirking at him. Lan blushed and shook his head.  
  
  
  
MegaMan and Roll were logged into NetCity and were eating at the Cyber World's version of the restaurant where their NetOps were. "So... uhh... How's life with Maylu?" he asked, more nervous than his NetOp. "Fine. You're afraid of me, aren'cha? You, Megaman, are afraid of screwing up in front of li'l ol' me?" she asked, giggling. "No!" Mega immediately said, flailing his arms. "Prove it" she said, giggling more.  
  
"Prove it, huh? Hmm..." he said. Then, he had an idea that would make Roll stop picking on him for good. He snickered as he stood up, as if about to make a toast. "Hey everyone! Guess what?! I love this NetNavi! She's the best thing to happen to me since my creation! I, MegaMan, am totally and completely in love with this pink NetNavi, Roll!" he yelled, getting the attention of everyone in the block. As a result, many people stared at the couple, which turned Roll's face redder than the wine she was drinking. "Way to go, MegaDude!" a surfer NetNavi among the crowd cheered. "Congratulations, Roll. You bagged the famous hero, MegaMan. I bet he's good in bed" a female Navi said happily, obviously a fan of MegaMan. The girl's last comment made Roll blush even redder, if that's even possible. "How 'bout that, Roll-chan? Think I'm afraid now?" he grinned, loving the blush on her face.  
  
Roll's response was to put some Zenny on the table to pay for the meal, grab her 'obnoxious' boyfriend, and run off. (A/N: Zennies are the MegaMan universe's currency, right? Or did I screw up?) She didn't stop until she took Mega to an alley a block away. "MegaMan! You completely humiliated me! Why I oughta...!" she said, absolutely fuming. She looked livid enough to punch his lights out. But instead, she threw herself into his arms and kissed him. A minute later, she broke the kiss. "I oughta thank you, Mega" she said, her arms wrapped around him.  
  
Little did they know that their romantic evening was about to go way downhill from there...  
  
  
  
And so, as dinner went, Lan and Maylu chatted about things like movies, current events, each other, school stuff, friends, how sexy the other looks, NetBattling, Dr. Wily's antics, and... did I mention each other? As they were eating their desserts, Lan decided to speak up and tell Maylu something that he'd been dying to tell her since he went through puberty. He knows that she probably figured it out by now, but he wanted to tell her anyway. "Uhh... Maylu?" he said, his throat becoming dry. "Yes, Lan?" she answered, looking into his eyes and smiling. Lan felt in awe of the heaven- sent angel sitting across from him. "Well... uhhh... You see... ummm... ahem... I wanted to tell you... err... that... I....lo-"  
  
He was interrupted by a woman's scream from nearby, which was followed by more screams of terror and metallic laughter. "What the?!" Maylu said, looking behind her, toward the direction of the screams. The horror she and Lan saw was completely impossible. Half-metallic skeletons, chain-wielding zombies, and winged steel gargoyles, armed with laser cannons, had appeared out of nowhere and began attacking the restaurant's customers, as well as anyone else they came across.  
  
"Where did they come from!?" Lan asked, slightly scared. "I dunno..." Maylu said, frightened of the monsters. Lan decided to do something to help save the innocents cornered by the undead, so he grabbed a chair and charged at the group. He bashed a zombie on its head, bringing it down. However, the others noticed and a gargoyle swung a fist at him, sending him flying back and crashing through a window. Maylu gasped, running to her boyfriend. "Lan! Oh Lan! Please say something...!" she cried, trying to help him up. One of the gargoyles spotted Maylu and started to approach her. "Lan! Help me! Please, Lan...!" she begged, trying to decide whether to run from the monster or stay with her downed date.  
  
Lan woke up, sore from the punch and the window. "Huh...?" he said, seeing a scared Maylu and the metal gargoyle walking toward her. He immediately got up and stepped in between her and the mecha-monstrosity. "You leave Maylu alone, you jerk! Go away!" he yelled, grabbing another chair and threatening the gargoyle with it. The beast still marched on. So, Lan swung at its head as hard as he could, only to have the metal chair break into pieces while the gargoyle didn't even have one dent. The android responded with a grunt and another punch, sending the brave teen skidding into the opposite edge of the road, barely conscious.  
  
The gargoyle then grabbed Maylu, who was currently worrying about Lan's safety more than her own, and began to fly off with her. "LAAAAAAAAAAN!!!" she cried as she was carried away by the winged beast, who joined the rest of the gargoyle pack, all with a scared female in custody. "No... Maylu-chan..." Lan said, before falling into the darkness that is unconsciousness...  
  
All around the unconscious teen, chaos reigned in that part of Dentech City. Humans either ran away scared or fought back with whatever weapon they could find. Some of the zombies and skeletons were brought down. But the undead army still pressed on, forcing most of the fighting humans to retreat due to injuries or fatigue. None, human nor undead, took notice of the knocked out boy as the battle continued and the police force arrived...  
  
  
  
The blocks of NetCity surrounding the current location of MegaMan and Roll were overflowed with viruses as many Navis tried to fight back. However, the rule that no BattleChips were allowed in NetCity was proving to be more than a light problem, as the Navis could only use their arm cannons. Only MegaMan could use BattleChips, since he owned an Official's badge, which was given to him by SharkMan. The bad news was that there was no response from Lan. "Lan, where are ya?! Jeez... C'mon, Roll!" MegaMan said, grabbing Roll's arm and running into a different, wider alley. MegaMan had fought a bit, destroying many viruses, but he was worn down and exhausted after a while. Besides that point, he saw StoneMan and BlasterMan storming down the street they were on and he hadn't the energy nor the skills to put up with them at the moment.  
  
As they hid at the end of the alley, Roll was scared. MegaMan couldn't blame her, for when they got back to the restaurant a few minutes ago, it had been invaded by the first wave of viruses, all high-level Spookies. The ghost viruses were led by a tall, dark, cloaked figure, carrying a scythe, the blade made of dark purple energy. It's face was nothing but a skull with robotic red eyes in its eye sockets.  
  
Back to the present, MegaMan was thinking about that Grim Reaper-like virus and the fact that StoneMan and BlasterMan are present. "World 3's behind this... Argh! When will Dr. Wily quit!? We've whupped his arse so many times, it should be hard for him to sit down without feeling pain!" he said, fed up with World 3's persistence. "I know... but what's with the ghost army?" Roll said, a worried look on her face. "I don't know, Roll-chan... I don't know..." MegaMan said, stumped. Roll had a hunch and checked her memory banks for some sort of clue to why World 3 went Goth. "Do you think it has something to do with that black energy beam Lan and the others saw on the news a month ago?" she suggested, seeing more Spooky viruses streak right past the alley's entrance, not knowing of the two Navis in there. "Possibly. I'm betting whatever made that beam must've been biding its time until everyone forgot about it..." MegaMan said. "Maybe... I don't know what else it could be, other than Dr. Wily just suddenly changing his style..." answered his girlfriend.  
  
MegaMan and Roll were too busy thinking to notice that they weren't alone in that alley...  
  
"Mr. Mega, I presume..." a cold, calm voice said from the alley's entrance. Surprised, the Navis looked to see a guy wearing a black suit, tie, and shades, a la federal agent. His hair was short, brown, and combed back in formal fashion. He had an emotionless look on his face. (A/N: Can anyone guess who this villain is before I reveal his identity at the end of this chapter? Hint: Not one of the Men In Black, that's for sure...)  
  
"Who are you and what do you want?" MegaMan said, ready to defend himself, despite his tiredness. He stands protectively in front of Roll, glaring at the well-dressed man.  
  
"Calm yourself, Mr. Mega. I'm only here for one thing. According to my superiors, my target is that pink Navi standing behind you. I shall remove her and take her to her new... home..." the agent guy said, trying to sound fair and official. "Roll? Why do you want Roll? Who are your 'superiors'? Are you with those viruses?" MegaMan asked, now sure that he'll have to fight.  
  
"None of your concern, Mr. Mega..." the man calmly replied. "Well, I won't let you take her!" Mega stated, glaring at the strange official. "Oh. Really?" the man said, not fazed by the Blue Bomber's vow. "No way you're taking her, bub" Mega answered, a look as serious as the Secret Service- wannabe's. "I'm not going with you, you weirdo" Roll said, sticking her tongue out at the agent. "Weirdo, am I...? Well then... I guess I'll have to get serious then. I let no target stay free, my 'friends'. You will learn this the hard way, Mr. Mega and Ms. Roll" the official said, cracking his knuckles and his neck at the same time. "You seem to know our names. What about you, 'buddy'? You have a name or did your superiors give you some number to go as?" Mega taunted, serious.  
  
The official said his response mechanically, as if he had to say it to anyone he comes across. "I am a self-running, self-repairing, self- regenerating, virus-proof program called Agent Smith.EXE and I am ordered to place Ms. Roll under arrest. Any resistance from her or her allies will result in complete and total deletion"  
  
  
  
Ryu-san: Yeah, I put Agent Smith from the Matrix Trilogy in this fic. No, I'm not gonna use the Matrix itself, the 'real-world-is-false' thing, or any other Matrix characters. Just Smith and his crazy fighting abilities. I just thought that Smith would be a cool idea for MegaMan's nemesis (besides his rival, ProtoMan, that is) for this fic. A technological hero vs. a technological psycho. God, I hope I don't get flamed for that... I know I kinda had some of the Maylan fluff interrupted, but isn't that how all bad guys work sometimes, butting in on the good moments? Least I gave ya some MegaRoll for compensation and the action has started, even though it already looks bad for the heroes. Well anyways, I hope everyone likes this chappy as much as y'all liked the first 2. Please give me some reviews and tell me what y'all think. I wanna know.  
  
Oh, by the way, can somebody do me a favor? I haven't played any of the Battle Network games for the GBA (although I want to). Can somebody give me a list of viruses I could use in this fic? I only know of Spookies (I think that's what they're called) 'cause I read a MegaMan fic by someone who has played them.  
  
Coming Attractions-RockMan.EXE vs. Agent Smith.EXE! Who shall win Roll? What is the deal with the undead viruses? Plus, what will Lan do, now that his love has been kidnapped by Wily and Dracula, along with about half of Dentech's women? And why did they kidnap only the women? Also, why is Miyu so insistent about talking to Lan? And can Dex stop yelling at Lan? What will the heroes do when they learn that Yai has also been kidnapped? So many questions, so little time. Catch the next chapter, "Losses, Vows, and Some Plans", coming as soon as I can figure out how to write a good fight scene. 


	4. Losses, Vows, and Some Plans

Darkness in Dentech City  
  
Ryu-san: ::reads all reviews:: Well now I'm happy. The reviews keep coming and I don't even see one bad one. I just hope I can keep writing this good throughout the story. Now to answer some reviews, since I failed to do so in Ch. 3.  
  
Rock Raider-I'm not sure about all those guys, since I've only seen the NT Warrior series on the WB (God, that dub is childish, but what're ya gonna do, eh?) and I've only played a few of the games (MM7, MMX1). Higsby and NumberMan I'll throw in for more comedy relief, I guess. The most recent episode of NT Warrior was the one that intro'd Princess Pride and KnightMan. Hmm... I think Pride has a thing for Lan. I mean, I know they're good friends who haven't seen each other for a while, but still, what's with all the loving hugs she gave him, eh? If anyone disagrees, that's cool. This is a Lan/Maylu fic, after all. Anyways, for a surprise, I'm gonna throw in an old villain for everyone (even Wily and Dracula) to contend with. I'm sure you'll be pleased with who I have in store for all.  
  
Jill-Thanks for the extinguisher, but so far, I probably won't need it. I'll store it somewhere just in case... I was mainly worried that people might bash me for including Agent Smith and turning this into a story with 'stupid' crossovers. I read another Megaman fic ('Rockman EXE: The College Years' by Anime Master ZERO. Great fic and I highly recommend it to y'all) and a few flamed him because he included some Yu-Gi-Oh references and 'Hate Incarnate', Seto Kaiba (who Chaud acts a lot like, come to think of it).  
  
Erick-Genryusai-I'll think about that, but thanks for the suggestion.  
  
WarPrince2000-Is it just me or do you say the same thing to everybody's fics?  
  
Yuuokae-Thanks for the compliments. Much appreciated. But one thing, Mr. Match, Maddy, Yahoot, and Count Zap are now good guys... sorta. I just thought it'd be a good idea that after the PharoahMan Incident, with Wily temporarily gone (until now, obviously), they'd quit and become ordinary thieves, trying to live their lives. They still like to bug Lan and his friends, but they don't do it as much as they used to.  
  
MD 1428-I was just thinking about that Alucard and Maria idea myself. I loved Symphony of the Night. Best... Castlevania game... ever! I might just put that in. Thanks.  
  
Ok, now with most of everyone's questions answered here (except for who would win in Mega vs. Smith), let the next chappy begin!  
  
Disclaimer: See previous chappies.  
  
This chapter is rated PG-13 for language, violence, and a couple of sexual jokes involving Lan having a bit of a wild imagination...  
  
A/N: My apologies if some of this seems a bit angsty. I usually don't like the angst stuff, but hey, it fits the mood for this chap. Also, for those expecting a ton of cool moves from Smith, please be aware that I've only seen the first Matrix (when there was only one Smith and there was that cool fight between Neo and Smith in a subway station), so please bear with me. I'm trying to do the best I can with this and I'm not sure if the fight scenes I write are any good or not. Lastly, this chapter's a bit long and after the Mega vs. Smith fight, the rest focuses on the aftermath of the invasion. I still hope you guys'll still read it anyway. Y'all seem to like it so far.  
  
  
  
Chapter 4: Losses, Vows, and Some Plans  
  
In an alley somewhere in NetCity, there lay a beaten, one-armed, blue NetNavi named MegaMan. His right arm was missing, cut off at the shoulder, loose data oozing out. The rest of his body was covered with cuts, bruises, and wounds. Yes, he had definitely seen better days. His face had a look of terror and pain, his mouth slowly moving, uttering one word over and over again...  
  
"Roll..."  
  
As he lay there, mumbling the name of the girl he had been dreaming of since his creation, memories of the last 13 minutes played in his head, taunting his already wounded ego and wrenching his distraught heart...  
  
_Flashback, 13 minutes ago..._  
  
Agent Smith.EXE had just finished his declaration of placing Roll under arrest when MegaMan charged at him and gave him a few punches. But all of them had missed due to Smith calmly taking steps backward. "Really now... With that kinda response, people like me would think you're a criminal, Mr. Mega" Smith said, his face staying just the same, calm and cold. "You're trying to take my girlfriend, who didn't do anything in the first place. Why wouldn't I defend her?" the Blue Bomber said, giving out another round of rapid punches. But instead of backing off, Smith just stood there and moved his right arm, somehow blocking all of MegaMan's agile blows. Both Mega and Roll distinctly notice his arm moving like a semi-blur. "What the!? Impossible! You couldn't have blocked all that" gawked the blue Navi. Smith remained silent, as if daring him to attack again.  
  
MegaMan backed away slowly, stole a glance at a worried Roll, and then ran toward the Agent, going for a jump kick. But just as MegaMan jumped toward the dark program, everything seemed to slow down to a delusional crawl. (A/N: Yes, I'm putting Bullet Time in this fic. Cool, isn't it?) Smith also jumped, but only a little higher than the Bomber. He did a forward flip as MegaMan flew below him and just when he straightened himself out, he jammed both feet on the back of the blue Navi's head, which sent him skidding on the ground, face first. The Agent landed on his feet, still unharmed. That's when everything sped up to normal.  
  
"Mega!" cried a panic-stricken Roll, trying to resist the urge to just run to him and cradle him in her arms. Her hero started to get up, his face quite scratched up from the gravel raking it. "Haven't had enough yet, Mr. Mega?" the Agent said, still calm. "Hey Lan! I need help here! Lan? Are you there?! Lan!" MegaMan yelled, hoping for a BattleChip. No response. Nothing. All quiet. The Agent just snickered. "What's so funny, Mr. FBI?" the Blue Bomber asked, not liking the snickering at all. "No response from your NetOp, huh? That must mean that one of my superiors' problems in the real world has been... dealt with..." Smith sneered, intimidating them with a light smirk.  
  
"Dealt with? You mean someone... killed Lan?!!" he gasped, causing Roll to gasp in turn and try to contact Maylu, she also getting no response. "Most likely. And I'm betting that my superiors have also taken care of Ms. Roll's NetOp also. She has also been a huge thorn in their side. I'm guessing that they were one of the first to fall to the minions..." Smith laughed, turning to the pink Navi so that he could see her suffering. Roll did start to cry, but only a little. "Maylu-chan... Lan... They can't be dead..." she sniffled, trying to glare at the evil program. "You monster!!! I don't believe you!" Mega yelled, bringing out his arm cannon and blasting Smith with the ferocity of a machinegun. Smith just stood there for a moment, absorbing every shot that MegaMan fired. Then, he charged at the Navi and started fighting him.  
  
15 seconds of punching, kicking, and blocking later, Smith decided to show off his real skill. First of all, he ducked down and tripped MegaMan with a foot sweep. Then, while Mega was still in the air, Smith grabbed one of his feet, swung him around, and threw him at a wall. Soon, Mega slowly got up, coughing. He glared at the Agent, who ran up to him, pinned him to the wall, and started to punch him. Roll watched as the Agent's fists were practically blurs, pummeling her MegaMan with a hundred punches a second. Then, Smith took a step back and slammed his foot into Mega's chest, keeping it there for a few seconds as he glared at the hero.  
  
"Is this the best that the MegaMan, the city's greatest hero, the infamous Blue Bomber, can do? How could a Navi like you stop my superiors so?" Smith mocked, calm as always, before he released Mega from the foot- wall sandwich. MegaMan fought to stand his ground. After a few seconds, he got his bearings and stood up straight, facing the agent. His upper body, since he had left his armor and helmet in the PET ("Why would anyone wear armor on a date?" quote Mega), was covered with bruises, loose data bleeding from his mouth. "You should surrender Ms. Roll to me now before you suffer even greater pain" suggested Smith, smirking evilly.  
  
"Never... I'll never let you have her while I'm still breathing!" Mega declared, glaring hatefully at the sneering Agent. "Such dedication to your loved one... So touching... Too bad my programming doesn't include a heart" Smith egged on, trying to blind Mega with rage. Mega just stood his ground. "Yeah... Well, good thing ya don't have a heart. I mean, who'd love a heartless, ugly jerk like you who dresses up like a freakin' FBI guy and tries to kidnap heroes' girlfriends anyway? Must be hard to get any girl to go with ya, huh? Aww... Too bad. The only way you can ever get a girl is by kidnapping. How sad it is to be a perverted loser like you..." Mega spat back, the battle temporarily turning into a battle of wits. Smith growled almost inaudibly, unable to top that verbal uppercut, and decided that the insults end here by charging at MegaMan. Just as Smith was about to strike, MegaMan quickly sidestepped and whirled around so that Smith was between the Blue Bomber and the wall. The heroic Navi didn't waste any time and punched Smith the second he stepped behind the Agent... but ended up hitting the wall. Along with the pain of fist meeting brick, he felt a powerful blow in his gut, knocking the wind out of him. Smith had ducked down and punched his opponent. (A/N: Think of Johnny Cage's 'Nut Punch' move in Mortal Kombat games, except that the punch wasn't aimed at Mega's nuts. I already did a segment on being hit there...)  
  
While Mega stumbled back, Smith also didn't waste any chances and kicked Mega's head and then, while the Blue Bomber was trying to stop a nosebleed, used both his hands for 2 forceful open-palm strikes simultaneously. That sent Mega flying back a few feet before slamming on the ground. A minute later, Mega barely got up, his face a mess of bleeding data. He began to wish he could Style Change... or at least get a MiniBoomer BattleChip... Meanwhile, on the sideline, Roll wished she could do something, anything to help MegaMan. She decided to attack the Agent right then and there, since he's too busy with MegaMan. So she ran up to him, ready to slap Smith silly. But, as if he knew she was there, Smith stepped backward and stuck his foot forward, causing Roll to trip and fall on her face. "Ow!" she cried, her cute little nose beginning to bleed. "Roll! Are you ok?" Mega cried, running up to her, but before he could get to her, Smith was somehow behind him. He grabbed the Navi by his neck and picked him up off the ground, choking him.  
  
Mega struggled and flailed and kicked. This caused his right fist to hit Smith across the face, knocking the shades off of him and breaking them. Smith frowned, then bared his teeth. "I liked those shades...!" he calmly snarled, dropping Mega like a rock. Before the Navi could hit the ground, Smith kicked him like a football, sending him sprawling up in the air. Smith launched himself in the air, flying toward MegaMan to do some more damage. Before the Agent could land another blow, the Blue Bomber got over the shock from the punt, spun himself around in the air, and using the momentum to deliver a kick to Smith's head, just as Smith threw a punch at him. Smith was disoriented by the kick's impact on his face, but quickly straightened himself out. MegaMan landed on his back, agitating some of his wounds. The Navi also got up quickly, not paying attention to the pain of his wounds, thanks to a second wind.  
  
Still enraged by the fact that the black-haired, blue-clothed hero called MegaMan had the nerve to break his shades, Smith dived down fists- first like a missile, hoping to bash in his opponent's head. MegaMan rolled aside as Smith hit the ground, his fists creating two holes in the concrete ground. The Agent pulled his broken hands out of the ground and resumed his assault, which MegaMan kept dodging and countering. 'Ha! He's too angry to use any of those strange high-speed attacks' thought Mega, as he noticed that the kung-fu fighting seemed fair this time. Roll noticed this too. 'Go Mega... Teach this freak what's what... You can do it... That's it. Duck, right, punch! Down, left, kick! Left, down, right, punch! Huh? Why did that sound like I'm reading off how to do moves from a fighting game? Oh whatever! Get 'em, Mega-kun!' her train of thought ran on.  
  
MegaMan was about to block another punch, which was aimed at his head, when he somehow felt it in his gut. Smith then tried to kick Mega's left side. Mega was prepared to block when his head was somehow hit by the very kick he was trying to block. 'What the?! What hit me?' thought the Blue Bomber, as another invisible kick made contact with his right leg. "Mega! He's psyching you out! He's using attacks too fast for the eyes while fooling you with slower ones!" cried Roll, who had used her mental computer to analyze the last attack in super slow-mo. "Feh... Tattletale..." Smith accused at her as he attacked MegaMan again. The heroic Navi jumped back and decided to keep his distance while Smith was able to do that. He brought out his arm cannon again. "Didn't you learn from the last time?" sneered Smith. "Yeah. But you never gave me the chance to load it up to full power, like you're doing now" MegaMan said, returning the sneer. He fired a huge energy blast at Smith, hoping to do some decent damage. (A/N: Remember that powered-up blaster ability from the old MegaMan games?)  
  
In case the blast didn't work, Mega jumped up, flying in Smith's direction, to ambush him while he was distracted by the energy. Smith scoffed, turned around, and before the energy could hit him, he fell backward and did a soccer-style bicycle kick, rebounding the blast up to where MegaMan jumped up to. Before the Blue Bomber could do anything to dodge, his own attack hit him, sending him back to the ground. "How...?!!!" Roll gasped, wishing she had enough strength to help her boyfriend. She watched as Smith ran up to where Mega fell.  
  
After a few seconds of staring coldly down over his opponent, Smith grabbed Mega's right arm and pulled it, stretching it straight out. While he had it there, he used his other hand to do a quick, but very powerful karate chop, cutting Mega's right arm off.  
  
Everyone in a 5 block radius, virus and Navi alike, heard MegaMan's scream, causing them to stop the battle for a moment and wonder what the heck was going on...  
  
Back in the alley, Smith held the detached right arm in his hand while MegaMan rolled around on the ground in agony, a shocked and sobbing Roll trying to use her healing abilities, but failing because she was too shocked by Lan and Maylu's so-called 'deaths' and by Mega's horrible injury to focus on her magic. "Mega..." she sobbed, trying at least to stop his frantic flailing.  
  
But Roll was suddenly grabbed by Smith and put over his shoulders. "Strong, but not strong enough, Mr. Mega. I'd stay, but I have business to attend to. Oh, and about what happened, your defiance caused you an arm this time. Just make sure it doesn't cost you a leg too from now on" he said, laughing at his own sick joke and dropping the severed arm. Just as it hit the ground, the arm disappeared into broken data, which floated away and vanished. Agent Smith.EXE logged out, taking the still frantic Roll with him...  
  
_End Flashback  
_  
MegaMan wished he could've been stronger for Roll's sake. He felt like it was his fault Roll was taken. Here he was, broken and beaten, while Roll was who-knows-where, suffering some horrible fate by that Agent's stupid 'superiors'... He wished he knew what happened with Lan. Indeed, he was mad at Agent Smith for even suggesting that Lan and Maylu were dead. He seriously doubted Smith's claim and he knew that Roll, crying as she was, didn't believe him either.  
  
Then, his thoughts began to turn to the Agent himself. How could he move so fast? He remembered the moment when he had impossibly blocked all the punches of his second speedy assault, when he somehow ducked when he had tried to punch him point-blank, and the part when his attacks came out from nowhere. Did he have some secret agility upgrade? A new weapon that increases speed tenfold? Just tons and tons of fighting experience? MegaMan couldn't figure out what powered that crazy program.  
  
Frustrated, he tried to get himself up, trying not to agitate his sore body too much, especially his right shoulder, which leaked data like a leaky faucet. However, his body felt as fragile as a brittle china plate. It took him two and a half minutes for him to get to his knees. "Lan... Where are you... I really need to log out..." he grunted as he tried to get to his feet. However, he fell down again. A minute later, he rolled over onto his back and looked up into the night sky, wishing that someone would help.  
  
And that's when he saw a very familiar skeleton Navi...  
  
  
  
The next morning, Lan slowly woke up, wondering how he fell asleep during his date with Maylu. Then, before he got his eyes fully open, it all came back to him. Cyborg monsters, battles breaking out, him attacking one of them, a steel gargoyle throwing him through a window, Maylu in danger, him trying to save her, the gargoyle punching him out, and Maylu being kidnapped. "Maylu!!!" he cried, quickly sitting up. However, he saw that he was in a bedroom. Sunlight poured in from the nearby window, lighting up the room. He looked around and saw that the master bedroom was decorated by kanji depicting arcane magic, mystical artifacts, strange art about angels, demons, and warriors, and a certain crystal ball. Even the tables and wardrobe had some sort of mysterious décor or item on them.  
  
It was very clear whose house he was in. "Miyu..." he muttered as he got out of the fancy bed he slept in. That's when he realized that his head ached a bit. He walked to the window and stared out at the city, thinking. "Argh... Did last night even happen?!" he said out loud, the whole situation still impossible for him to believe. "If not, then what am I doing at Miyu's, wearing almost nothing?" he wondered, suddenly noticing the lack of clothes, save for his underwear. "I guess she found me and took me here..." he shrugged. He still wondered where his clothes went when a crazy thought hit him. "Oh no! Did we...?" he asked, trying to think of what his parents would think about losing his virginity to a girl he barely knows without even knowing it. "Oh what am I talking about?! She wouldn't do that!" he snapped, slapping himself in the face. He began to question whether he was losing his mind or not. "Strange metal monsters? Maylu's gone? Miyu screwing me? Argh! I really need some answers here..." he groaned, leaning his head against the window and making his headache worse.  
  
He heard the door open and turned to see Miyu wearing nothing but a closed-up bathrobe. She had just come out of the shower. 'Miyu actually wearing something normal? That's something ya don't see everyday' he thought, remembering how he always saw her in some mystical get-up. "Good morning, Lan..." said Miyu, sounding mournful. "Morning, Miyu... Listen, I think something weird's going on. First" "You went out with Maylu on a date, you got interrupted by semi-mechanical monsters, Maylu got kidnapped, you got knocked out, and then you woke up here in my bedroom, wondered what went on and what you're doing almost naked, and a minute ago you thought that somehow we made love, yes?" the psychic interrupted, smirking a little at him for a moment. "Uhhh... Yeah?" Lan said, again amazed at her talent. He blushed from her knowing about his thoughts. "You, my friend, have one offbeat imagination there. Relax, Lan. We didn't do it at all. I know how much you like a certain redhead. All I did was bring you here and check you for injuries. Thankfully, there's nothing but bumps and bruises, despite that you got thrown through a window and got punched by a metal fist" she responded, picking up her crystal ball. "Phew! So that's why I'm nearly naked... So do you know what that invasion was about?" he asked, remembering Maylu crying out for him as she was flown off. "It was as you saw it. Cyborg monsters did invade part of Dentech, the citizens caught in the chaos came out with serious or minor injuries, and Maylu was taken away, as well as around half of Dentech's female population. She's gone, Lan. I'm sorry..." the psychic said, feeling sorry for the poor boy.  
  
Lan sighed, feeling down. He felt tears well up when he remembered his promise to Mrs. Sakurai to take good care of her daughter. "Feh... Some job I did of taking good care of Maylu... I let her get kidnapped by a group of freaks... Her mom's gonna be so mad at me..." he said, knowing that his girlfriend's mother's yelling is the least of his problems. Miyu led him back to the bed so he could lie back down. "Sigh... I don't know what I can say, Lan... Getting Maylu and the other women back won't be easy at all" she said, watching Lan as he brooded.  
  
"What about MegaMan? I think I left my PET back at that restaurant" Lan asked, suddenly remembering his partner. "More bad news... It appears NetCity suffered the same type of invasion. I found your PET for you. As far as MegaMan goes, SkullMan found him in horrible shape. He was bleeding data all over, he could barely move, and his right arm has been cut off completely. He told SkullMan that Roll has been taken too... Again, I apologize" she said. Shocked again, Lan looked into his PET and saw a recovering, unconscious MegaMan, his arm halfway regenerated and half his bruises gone. "What happened to him?" he asked, wondering why everything's going so terribly wrong. "A rogue program, a type of cyber-mercenary that follows orders to the letter. Rogue programs can have a wide range of powerful and sometimes strange and new powers and abilities. This one must've been quite a doozy to deal that much damage to MegaMan, the Savior of NetCity..." she explained, noticing Lan putting his hands to his head as if he suffered from a migraine.  
  
"Who's responsible for this!?" Lan growled, having had enough of bad news. Maylu's kidnapping, both Dentech and NetCity being invaded, his Navi beaten up, his Navi's girlfriend also taken, and he just realized that his other close friends could also be in major trouble... It was all he could stand and he had to do something. "Dr. Wily. In NetCity, SkullMan saw StoneMan and BlasterMan among the invaders, along with some strange new Navis. Apparently, this was just his entrance..." Miyu said, handing him fresh clothes. Lan got up and immediately got dressed, inwardly fuming at how devastating Wily's ambush was. 'Is this Wily's idea of revenge? If so, then it worked. He actually managed to win one. But he won't for long. MegaMan and I will save Maylu and anyone else the 'good doctor' took hostage. That I promise' he declared to himself, completely silent for once as he dressed.  
  
"Lan, I have something to give you. I believe it could help you in the rescue mission you intend to go on" said Miyu, reading his mind again. She walked over to a picture of a handsome, blonde, young man wearing a fancy, medieval-type outfit. 'Leon Belmont' the caption on the bottom of the portrait read. She pressed a hidden button on the side of the huge painting of the warrior, then pulled it open, like a door. Inside was a hidden vault. Miyu quickly twirled the lock back and forth, knowing the combination by heart. Then, she opened the safe. Inside, there was a sealed chest, which she took out. "In this case, there is an ancient weapon that was the bane of any unholy being unfortunate enough to come across its owner. Now that there are monsters unleashed upon our world once again as well as their hellish master, I feel that it is time for this weapon to have a new owner" the blue-haired psychic said, giving the case to Lan.  
  
Lan set the old case on a table and opened it only to find nothing but an even older whip inside. However, there was no dust or cobwebs on it. Nor were there any signs of age on the centuries-old weapon. "A whip? What's so special about a whip?" he asked, grabbing the handle and pulling it out, unraveling it. He gave it a light flick, whipping the open air. "That very whip is known as the Vampire Killer. It is the weapon that has defeated the King of Vampires, Dracula, more than once. The Vampire Killer has been passed down the Belmont family's bloodline for centuries now, since Dracula has returned more than once to wreak more mayhem. However, the Belmont bloodline is thinning and we've no time to find the current descendents. But you, Lan... You have shown us all again and again that you have what it takes to be a true hero" Miyu said, smiling a little at him. "I have?" Lan said, as if thinking that World 3 and Grave were nothing but petty rivals, like Chaud. "Yes. You're brave enough to stand up to whatever danger surrounds you, your loyalty to your friends is strong and unwavering, you would risk your life to save others, even those you don't know, you never give up on anybody or anything, since you're so stubborn sometimes, and you have a good heart and would never hurt anybody, except those who deserve it, of course"  
  
"Thank you, Miyu... First time I got told how much of a hero I am... I mean, I celebrate with my friends and all, but really, no one else ever thanked me or anything" Lan said, blushing at the psychic's compliment. "Well, that's because word doesn't get out very much. People know a little of your deeds, but the media thinks that a simple 'the crisis has been averted' would do just fine to settle people. But you wouldn't care about being famous, would you?" she said, smirking. "Nope. Even though playing the hero is kinda exciting, I like being a normal guy. But then again... Being a hero has its downfalls as well..." he said, referring to Dr. Wily kidnapping Maylu and Roll, among those taken. "I know, Lan. But, with great power comes great responsibility..." said Miyu, coining a phrase made famous by a certain web-slinger. (A/N: Anybody gonna see Spider-Man 2? I know I will!) "Yeah... Ya got a point. MegaMan and I'll make sure that everyone returns safely. I beat World 3 many times before, so this should be no problem" Lan said, calmed by the fact that he knows how Wily acts.  
  
"Now you're talking. By the way, I have done you the favor of loading a map of where Wily's new base is in your PET. I managed to put a tracer on one of those flying freaks as they tried to take me. Obviously, they failed" she said, smirking in a way that silently said 'No way I'm going down without a fight'. "Ok. Thank you for your help, Miyu. I really appreciate you saving me back there. I owe you one, big time" he said, going to the door. "You're very welcome" the psychic said, smiling at the young hero and hoping that he does succeed.  
  
"Oh, by the way, what did you mean when you said that the monsters' 'hellish master' was also loose?" Lan asked, looking curiously at the whip. "Dracula has escaped and has formed a deadly alliance with Wily" Miyu simply responded, her smile fading at the subject. "Oh... What?! I'm fighting a Vampire King too?! Jeez! That'll make our job a lot harder...!" groaned Lan, opening the bedroom door. "One more thing, Lan..." Miyu said, which halted his actions. "Yeah?" he asked, looking back at her. "Your fortune for your adventure... Remember that you are not the only true hero in Dentech City. Oh, and that sometime during your mission, you can expect help from an unexpected source" she advised, looking into her crystal ball. "Ok. Later, Miyu. I hope this isn't the last time I say goodbye to you..." he said as he left the bedroom and then left her home. Miyu just had a knowing look on her face, as if she knew whether he'd come back alive or not...  
  
  
  
Lan decided to head toward the treehouse hideout at Yai's to see if anyone had heard about Wily's invasion. 'What if Yai got taken too? Sigh... Wily's gone too far this time, interrupting my date with Maylu and taking hostages...' he mentally grumbled. His thoughts turned to Dracula and how the heck he was gonna beat up a powerful lord of the undead along with the mad doctor. He was so deep in thought that he almost didn't realize that he'd arrived at Yai's mansion.  
  
However, it seems that the richest girl in Dentech had some very unwanted company...  
  
Her front gate was ripped off and pieces of it were scattered on the ground. There were also a few holes in the front wall, as if some of the undead were too impatient to wait for someone to destroy the gate. Lan was scared by this and went to the doorbell/intercom.  
  
"Yai! Yai, are you there?! It's me, Lan! Are you alright?!" he said, hoping that she had somehow got away unscathed. No response. Not even the harsh sound of static. He ran through the front gate and ran toward the mansion, which took 5 minutes, since she owned the biggest courtyard anyone's ever seen. He saw that the front door had also been broken down. There were also some claw marks left on the wall around the main door. He ran in and saw that the lobby looked like a tornado ran through it. Apparently, the 'tornado' had really injured someone, for there were a couple of bloodstains on the wall opposite him.  
  
'God, I hope that isn't Yai's blood...' he thought as he ran through the lobby and into the next room, suddenly reminded of the first Resident Evil game. All the rooms he went through had the same kind of harsh treatment. Broken furniture, scattered debris, misplaced items, and, in the office rooms, papers everywhere. As he checked every room, Lan called out for Yai. No response whatsoever. Then, he came to her bedroom. He had never been in there before, since Yai said it was off-limits to anyone... except herself of course. 'Argh! Forget her little boundaries! I have to find her!' he thought as he opened the doors to her room.  
  
The first thing he noticed about Yai's bedroom was that it was obviously one of the biggest rooms in the whole mansion, next to the dining room and ball room. The second thing he noticed was that it, like all the other rooms, was a total mess. In a corner on the other side of the room was a huge plasma screen TV with an Xbox, GameCube, and PS2 lying in front of it. The TV itself was broken, a huge chunk of wood sticking out of it. Her luxurious bed, with pink silk curtains surrounding it and its own roof high above it, was a ruffled mess, claw marks in its expensive blankets and mattress and its curtains torn in places. Lan was reminded again of Yai's huge fetish for strawberry milk when he saw a 5-gallon vat labeled 'Imported Strawberry Milk' in a corner of the room to his left, next to a soft, very comfortable recliner. 'Duh...' was his first thought when he saw the vat. That thought was followed by an 'Oh man...' when he saw that the vat had been punctured by, he guessed, a huge gargoyle's fist and a puddle of wasted strawberry milk covered that corner of the room. The recliner lay on its side, the leg-rest part was cut off, as if a sword sliced it. The rest of the room was a complete mess of scattered manga, CDs, toys, and stuffed animals. 'Poor Yai...' he thought, still hoping that she somehow got away.  
  
That's when he heard something from a steel door at the center of the wall on his right. It sounded like someone or something was moving around in there. He moved slowly to the bank vault-like door, wondering if it could be Yai. He suddenly realized that it could be a left behind monster, so he put his right hand on his new whip as his left hand gripped the steel lever that was the doorknob. '3... 2... 1... Now!' he thought, turning the lever and rapidly pulling the door, expecting a claw or a sword to come flying out toward him. But nothing attacked.  
  
Inside was a smaller but dark room, filled with fancy girl's clothes and items. It was the biggest walk-in closet Lan had ever been in. He fumbled for a lightswitch, which he soon found, and turned on the lights to get a better view of everything. For a moment, it looked like there was no one in the closet. But then, from the corner of his eyes, he saw a few of the hanged clothes slightly move. Walking toward that set of outfits, he could hear soft, rapid breathing, the breathing of a scared person. He knelt down, which resulted in whoever was in there letting out a gasp. Then, he reached in to pull the hidden survivor out, which resulted in the person screaming. Lan jumped back, surprised. It was a girl's scream. And yet, the scream was familiar...  
  
"Yai?" he asked, the outfits the girl's hiding behind shaking a bit again. Then, the shaking stopped. "L..Lan? Is that you?" the girl said, still frightened by his attempt to pull her out. "Yeah... I saw your house in ruins and came looking for you..." he said as a short, blonde girl crawled out from under the hanging clothes. She stood up, looked at Lan, and began crying in his arms. Feeling sorry for her, he put his arms around her, comforting her. Again, he was reminded of his current problems.  
  
"So what happened here, Yai? Did monsters get you too?" he asked. "Monsters? How'd you know?" she asked, surprised that he knew about it, much less believed her. "I was on a date with Maylu... We were having a great time... until we got attacked by these half-metal deadheads and winged androids. They were attacking everyone they saw. I tried to help everyone, but I got tossed aside... and Maylu... they took her..." he said, again feeling deflated and enraged at the same time. "Maylu's gone too?! Oh God no...!" Yai wailed. To her, Maylu was like the sister she never had. The redhead wasn't rich, of course, but Yai liked her anyway.  
  
"Yai, was someone here taken?" Lan asked, feeling another urge to storm Wily's new base and kick his ass for good. "Yes... All my maids... They tried to protect me and hide me, but..." she sniffled before sobbing again. Lan was silent, not knowing how he could ever comfort her with such chaos happening. "My maids... They always took the best care of me... They didn't even care about their pay either, I don't think... I may act spoiled sometimes, I admit, but I always made sure that my servants got the best treatment..." she managed to get out, completely broken down.  
  
"Yai, I promise that I'll help you get your maids back, along with everyone else that got taken. I was found by Miyu and she told me all that's going on, where Wily's hiding, and she even gave me something to help me deal with the undead" he said, showing her his new whip. Yai had that same confused look he had when Miyu showed him the whip, so Lan began explaining everything, the invasion, the attack on NetCity, Roll's kidnapping, Mega's beatdown, the kidnapping of women, and Dracula. Yai listened and tried to let everything sink in.  
  
"Jeez... All this in one night... Sigh... This must be the saddest day I've ever had... This even tops the time when Grave sucked my money account dry with MagnetMan... Speaking of NetNavis, Glyde even had to Style Change to deal with a strange Navi that appeared in out security systems. It looked gross... A giant ball made of human corpses..." Yai sighed, sitting down. She was silent for a moment. "Lan, thank you for your help, promising that you'll get everyone back and all. I mean it... However, this all sounds very dangerous... You're very brave, but how can you beat a vampire and an army of monster with only a whip?" she asked, trying not to imagine a lone Lan surrounded by a large number of Hell's gruesome residents. But her imagination got to her anyway, causing her to get all the more worried about Lan. "I dunno... I wish I could have some help with this..." he admitted, his mind unconsciously thinking of how many minions could be hiding within Wily's base.  
  
"Relax. I'll call the others and see if they wanna help stop Wily. Besides, the mansion also has a hidden armory with a ton of weapons and armor we could use. We can arm ourselves with whatever we want, and then we can fly out to Wily's and storm his base. Hmm... I figure that if we ambush the base while they're guard is down after such an attack, Wily and ol' Bats'll have to keep the minions at the base to deal with us. We'll be armed enough, I think" Yai said, trying to think of strategies she learned from playing a lot of strategy RPG's on her game consoles. "That's cool. I hope everybody'll want to help. It'll take a lot of courage to be willin' to go through with this..." Lan said, remembering his first fight with the undead, trying to save Maylu from being kidnapped.  
  
Suddenly, they heard familiar voices, calling out Yai's name. It sounded like Dex, Tory, and even Chaud had seen the damage and came to investigate. "Least we won't have to call them" Lan said, shrugging as he got up and helped Yai up. "Yeah" she responded, opening the steel closet door.  
  
  
  
Lan and Yai found their friends (and rival) and tried to explain the situation. But when it came to the part about Maylu being kidnapped... Well... Let's see for ourselves...  
  
"LAN, YOU IDIOT! YA LET MY MAYLU-CHAN GET KIDNAPPED BY A BUNCHA GOTH FREAKS WEARIN' ARMOR AND MAKEUP! I KNEW MAYLU NEEDED A REAL MAN TO DATE HER!" ranted Dex, angered that Lan was the favorite of Maylu yet he couldn't protect her. Tory and Chaud held him back, since he was struggling to give Lan a serious thrashing. Lan just sighed, feeling like he just had salt rubbed in his mental wounds. Yai, frustrated by Dex's rage and the ruckus he was making, stood up, marched to the fat teen, and slapped him across the face. "YOU INSENSITIVE JERK!!! Don'cha know that Lan was doing his very best to protect her!?! He was fighting monsters out there! Monsters! Not gothic humans in costumes! AND, he was completely outmatched, so it would be extremely difficult to fight all those steel freaks with nothing but fists, tables, and chairs! I can't believe you, Dex! Besides, Lan swore that he was gonna get every hostage back, including Maylu!" Yai snapped, her braided ponytails standing straight up in anger.  
  
"But... But" Dex stammered, but Yai just grunted before sitting next to Lan, trying to calm herself and seeing if Lan was ok. "Dex, you really have gotta get over Maylu..." Chaud muttered, humiliated that he had to be witness to the fat dork's rants. "What'd you say, skunk-hair?!" Dex growled. "Ya heard me... Find another girl to obsess over" Chaud responded. "Guts no like what Skunk-Hair is telling Dex!" threatened GutsMan, only to receive a glare from ProtoMan. "Well, Dex did start it" IceMan said, as if the most obvious thing in the world. "If everyone would please calm down..." Glyde said, trying to reason with the two Navis, but failing. "What would you know about getting girls?! What? Do ya spray 'Ode de Skunk' cologne to go with your hairstyle?!" Dex snapped, proud of that joke. "How long did it take you to come up with that one? Your brain as slow as your feet?" Chaud countered, scoffing at GutsMan's NetOp. Dex and Chaud, along with their Navis, ended up in a glaring contest, making everyone else feel annoyed or uncomfortable. Yai's annoyance was building again, as anyone looking at her could tell with her face giving off a look of a flunked anger management patient. "HEY!!!" Tory shouted, shutting everyone up. "Thank you, Tory..." Lan said, his head pounding from the racket.  
  
And so, the explanation continued, Lan and Yai telling them about Wily's involvement and his alliance with Dracula and what other info Miyu had told Lan. After the whole mess was straightened out, Yai stood up, borrowed Lan's PET, and used both the device and her computer to produce a projection of Miyu's map, showing the location of Wily's castle. Then, she started the briefing, a la drill sergeant. "Listen people, Dr. Wily has succeeded in his ambush, but odds are that during today, the base's guard might be down due to the attack force recovering from the strike by reorganizing themselves, stocking supplies, putting hostages away, possibly celebrating, etc., etc. If we arm ourselves with the weapons from my armory, take one of my jets, fly out to the area, and land a few miles away from the enemy base" she then pointed out an area a good distance southeast from Castlevania. "we can possibly sneak into it and start causing chaos until we find the captured women. We will also hack into the base's network so that our Navis can search for any captured Navis, defeating any virus in their path. Our objective is to first rescue the prisoners and grant them a safe passage out of the base. Then, we find Wily and Dracula and teach them a lesson for good! Understood!?" she snapped, taking her role as drill sergeant a bit too far.  
  
"Ma'am, yes ma'am!" Lan, Tory, and Dex saluted. Chaud just nodded, still disliking her. With that, the briefing ended. "Alright... Follow me to the armory and I'll show ya the weapons my family has stored up" Yai ordered, walking to the double-doors and opening them, the others following her. 'Dr. Wily will pay. We will make sure of that... I just hope this situation doesn't get any worse than this' Lan thought as he walked with the others, following Yai to prepare once again to be the hero and kick around World 3.  
  
But now that World 3 has the advantages of a devastating first strike and a good number of hostages, can the NetSaviors live up to their title once again? Or could this latest adventure lead to their downfall?  
  
  
  
Ryu-san: Whew!!! Long chapter this time... Guess that's what I get when I get ideas and run with 'em. I hope you all enjoyed this chappy. Please review and tell me what y'all think. To those that voted for MegaMan to win the battle against Agent Smith, don't worry. They'll cross paths again later on.  
  
Coming Attractions-The gang of heroes choose their weapons, get some new chips from Higsby's, and fly out toward Wily's base, Castlevania. MegaMan is finally repaired and operational, but that piece of good news is drowned out by a 'S.O.S.' email Lan receives from a familiar face, giving the NetSaviors more grief. As they land and sneak toward the castle, even more mystery presents itself as a mysterious figure is following them. What will happen as they try to get in through the front gate? What evil will they face inside? What can their NetNavis expect to face when they are jacked into the dark network? What is going on in the deathly corruption that is the mind of Wily? And whatever happened to the Ex-World 3 agents after the invasion? Chaos, counterstrikes, and conspiracies ahoy on the next chapter, 'Approaching Castlevania', coming out as soon as I can. 


	5. Approaching Castlevania

Darkness in Dentech City

Ryu-san: ::reads all reviews:: Not to sound egotistical, but... Wooooo! I'm still doin' good! I guess I know how to write a fight scene after all. Sorry if ya wanted MegaMan to win the Mega vs. Smith match. But hey, ya can't beat a Matrix Agent that easily. Besides, Mega'll have a chance at vengeance later. Anyways, sorry if I took so long updating. I needed time to get myself inspired as to how I was gonna start this chappy. Now I have a pretty good idea, so the wait should be worth it (I hope).

Also, some sad news... A friend of mine betrayed me... Well, not exactly a betrayal as in he tried to kill me or somethin'. He just suddenly didn't wanna be my friend anymore for some reason. That got me down in the dumps for a while... Anyways, now to reply to those that reviewed (like always), especially a few people that were cool to me. Cool as in awesome, that is.

Windwingxs-Nice to see that you're excited about Lan being the new owner of the hunter's whip, the Vampire Killer. Wait 'til ya see what the other NetSaviors get. Thanks for the compliment.

MD 1428-Thank you for your sage advice. I totally agree with you about those who flame others' fics. As for your offer, I might just take ya up on that. Thanks again.

Star ATJ 84-Van Helsing rocked! You just might see some of the V.H. weaponry in here, starting with this very chappy. As for the idea of someone taking the role of Carl the Friar, I might have to do some more thinking about who to use... Thanks for the Rockman site. I now know the full extent of how US editors and censors messed up Rockman.EXE and turned it into the childish NT Warrior (The episode summaries was one of the segments I looked at).

Rock Raider-Nice ideas, but remember, I've only seen MegaMan NT Warrior, the US dub on the WB. I can't find a way to see the original (unless it's out on dvd in the USA, but I don't know if it is or not). I have seen Kid Grave, the Gospel Virus Beast, and Forte (aka Bass) and I know some things about them. Old man Gauss I've definitely seen before. Freakin' gay crossdresser... Eww!

Jill-Maria and Alucard might appear...sorta... More on that in later chapters. Don't wanna spoil things now. As for Lan's mother, I'm not sure if I want to give Lan more grief than he already has. Maylu's gone, Roll's gone, Mega's been literally disarmed by Agent Smith, the cities (Dentech and Net) are in chaos, Yai's mansion is a mess and her maids were taken, and he has to somehow beat the King of Vampires along with Dr. Wily. Whoa, that's a lotta pressure... And I already have one more piece of bad news to add to Lan's burden in this chapter. Maybe I could add his mother in as a 'last straw' kinda thing. And about the muse idea, you seem like a cool person, so sure, why not? Now if you could tell me how this works here, the muse concept... I am new here, ya know. (This is my second fic) Thanks a lot, Jill.

Ryu-san: Ok. Intro comments, check. Review replies, check. Am I missing anything? Nope. Doesn't seem so. And so, with that... Let Chapter 5 begin!

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Chapter 5: Approaching Castlevania

In one of Dentech City's upper-class neighborhoods, there was a mansion owned by the very rich and very famous Yai Ayano. However, the mansion currently looked like an army of angry, muscled drunks had thrown a huge riot and turned it into the city's largest broken-down flophouse. Almost every room was trashed with broken items, papers everywhere, debris lying around, and very misplaced furniture. Occasionally, a bloodied body of a male servant could be found lying in the middle of a corridor or in a corner of a room, which saddened Yai greatly when she and her friends did find a corpse of one of her respectable employees on their way toward the Ayano Armory.

One of Yai's closest friends, Lan Hikari, mentally vowed revenge on his enemy, Dr. Wily of World 3, for the hundredth time that day. 'Curse him! How dare Wily do this to Dentech City, to my friends, to me! Won't he ever quit!? Feh! Now, his minions are killing people... How far will he go to conquer the world, that scum...!?' he thought, his friends noticing the frown etched on his face, something that Lan rarely shows.

"Lan?" Tory said, trying to snap him out of his thoughts. No response from the addled teen. "You gonna be ok?" IceMan's NetOp asked, concerned. Lan said nothing again, but he let out a stressed sigh. "Let him be. His girlfriend was kidnapped, his navi was trashed, the city's in turmoil again, and Wily made a powerful new 'friend'. Guess he needs a little more time to get over the shock of what happened" said Lan's rival, Chaud, who wasn't in the mood to start fights this time.

Although Dex was jealous at the fact that Maylu, who he had a huge crush on, loved Lan, he was concerned for his friend. 'He must be really wasted by this. Normally, he'd be full of confidence that he could save everyone. Then again, I don't think Wily had ever pushed the stakes up this high. Trashin' half the city with undead, kidnapping women... What's that old geezer thinking?' wondered the pudgy NetOp of GutsMan.

Yai was trying to stifle her tears as images of her fallen butlers came to her mind again, like fresh wounds. 'I've been saving all this weaponry for great emergencies like war or somethin'... Well, if this isn't a great big mondo emergency, then I'm some cashless girl who drinks non-imported chocolate milk!' she thought, letting out a long low growl as she imagined herself beating the junk out of Dr. Wily by herself. She marched faster, anxious to get to her supplies of ammo and firepower.

Soon, Yai led them to a large portrait of her grandfather, who was a noble Colonel in the last war. She then pressed and held down a hidden button on the plaque which read her grandfather's rank and full name. The hidden button was actually the 'A' in Ayano. Then, she said her full name and then "Secret weapons under Dentech", the password for the secret armory. The section of wall containing the Colonel's portrait slid open to reveal a hallway leading into a huge room. "Here we are... The armory" the rich girl said, walking down the hallway, the others following.

Inside the huge room lay lots and lots of different weapons. Pistols, machine guns, submachine guns, semi-automatics, shotguns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, etc. But there were also some other weapons, somewhat different than the modern weapons of today. One weapon was a combination between a crossbow and a machinegun, which fired arrows at a fast rate. Another weapon was a multi-purpose grappling hook. Yet another was a pair of handheld circular blades. These blades, when activated, would spin around at a high speed, giving one's punch a cutting edge. Also included were old-fashioned weapons, like broadswords, katanas, spears, crossbows, axes, and lances.

"Alright, boys. Arm yourselves. I'm betting that this is gonna be one hell of a rocky road trip. One that'll have many, many obstacles in our path..." Yai said, placing a pair of katanas at her sides as well as a sniper rifle. Chaud took a fancy to a machine gun and the machine-crossbow. Tory took a lance, a pistol, and some jewel-encrusted gauntlets he found. Dex drew a shotgun and the handheld buzzsaw weapons. Lan took the grappling hook, which he noticed has a piercing drill attached to the hook part. He also took a fancy broadsword and a pair of pistols. Everyone took a lot of ammo for their chosen guns and pocketed them.

"One more thing, guys. During one summer vacation, I had a lot of free time on my hands. So I decided to make some battle outfits for ya. My maids helped me, so you'd better appreciate the effort we put into these get-ups" Yai said, walking over to six suitcases with a name on each of them. She started handing out the cases to the appropriate person, leaving Maylu's case behind. "Ok, go change and let's see what I've done" she said. "This is no time for a fashion update, moron" Chaud said, a frown decorating his already sour face. "Chaud, just do it. You might like what I did" Yai suggested, her hands clenched tightly, as if trying to hold back her fury. With that, the gang, except Yai, left to find bathrooms to change in. Yai just changed in the armory.

Lan came back in first, wearing a black overcoat, a black shirt underneath, black pants, an equally black fedora hat, black boots, and a necklace with a cool-looking, silver cross on it. "What the heck am I, Yai-chan? A goth Christian?" he asked, fidgeting with his necklace. "Thought it'd look cool. It's especially fitting, since we're fighting ghouls and vampires and all that" Yai replied, wearing what appears to be a camouflage-style green bodysuit with brown boots. Dex came back, grumbling. "Why do I have to look like a friar, Yai!?" Dex asked, wearing a friar's robe that actually fit him. "Think of it this way, Dex. The undead might fear a holy man, especially one with a shotgun and buzzsaw blades" Yai grinned. "Oh. Riiiight" Dex said, remembering the part about ghouls being weak against holy things.

Chaud came back, wearing a gray jacket, the back of which billows out like a cape as he walks, a shirt underneath, jeans and black boots. (A/N: Think Seto Kaiba's Battle City outfit) "Nice..." the jerk said, not bothering to insult her this time. "Why thank you, Chaud. It doesn't hurt to not taunt somebody, does it?" sneered Yai. Chaud grunted. Tory came in, donned in what appears to be a heavy, dark blue vest, bulletproofed by Yai. He also wore blue pants, also bulletproofed for protection from anything. "Am I supposed to be some a SWAT team member on Casual Friday?" the short teen asked, referring to the vest and pants. "At least you'll be well protected, Tory" Yai answered, packing her weapons. The others armed themselves with theirs.

"Are we set?" Yai asked, as everyone gathered around her. "Yep. As armed as we can be for this" Tory replied, holding his lance like a walking staff. "Good. Now, let's see if we can get some rare chips from Higsby's before we go. Chances are, we're gonna have to send our Navis to the enemy network" Yai said, going back to her strategist mode. "Good idea. With this chaos, he might give a few for free if we promise to stop Wily" Dex said, as a mental image of a whining Higsby trying to part with a rare chip came to mind. "Well, let's hurry. Maylu and the others don't have all day. We should be flying off now" Chaud criticized, which resulted in Yai snarling at him, like usual. "You two can argue all ya want once the Doc is trashed!" Lan stated impatiently, mainly to Chaud. With that, the group of NetSaviors left the mansion and took one of the remaining limos to the resident chip nerd's shop.

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Higsby, who nearly had a break-in by the rampant undead, was installing locks, deadbolts, chain locks, and a security device in an attempt to protect himself. After he put on the last lock, he let out a sigh of relief and finally relaxed. However, it had barely been 2 seconds when he heard a knock from the other side of the door, making him jump. "Yaaaah! Monsters! Go away!" Higsby shrieked, running upstairs to his living quarters, cowering.

Hearing the nerd's freaked reaction, Lan knocked again. "Argh! He must've seen those freaks too. He never did have much courage with these things..." Lan groaned, giving up on the knocking. Yai, knowing that delays would only serve to annoy, took matters into her hands. "Higsby! It's us! Now open up! We need some chips!" she snapped, as loud as she could. A few moments and a few clicks later, Higsby opened his door.

"Thank God it's only you... Last night was nuts! Some costumed nuts came around the neighborhood and kidnapped any female they could see! I bet you all heard about it..." the chip shop owner said, walking to his counter. "Some of us experienced it..." Lan said, noticeably unhappy. "Uhh... Say, where's Maylu? She sick today?" Higsby asked, looking around. Lan frowned. The others were hesitant. "What's wrong? Man, you all look beat, especially you, Yai. Can someone please explain? And what's with the outfits? You goin' on some mission?" said a confused Higsby. Finally, Chaud spoke. "Maylu was kidnapped by those freaks, Yai's mansion was almost destroyed, and World 3's behind the whole thing" the skunk-haired boy said, his usual frown on his face.

"World 3 again...? Why does it always have to be them!? I am so sick and tired of those morons! Every time they do something involving the city, I end up getting bashed, smashed, and trashed! A man can only rearrange his supply of rare battlechips in alphabetical order after every disaster for so long...!" he ranted. A sweatdrop mark appeared behind the heads of the NetSaviors at the last comment. "Speaking of rare battlechips, ya got any? We might need them to rescue everyone" Lan asked, going to one of the stands and rummaging. "Of course I do. In fact, I just got a few new ones this morning, after the attack. They appeared mysteriously, for some odd reason. Let me show ya" he said, ducking beneath the counter, looking for something among his hundreds of chips.

He resurfaced a minute later, carrying a small package. He beckoned them to gather around before opening the unmarked box. Inside were a handful of chips, which appeared to look like old pieces of technology. "I figure that these were among the world's first battlechips, possibly released when battlechips were first introduced to the world 63 years ago, just 3 years after NetNavis were introduced. (A/N: Not sure when BattleChips and NetNavis were introduced to the world in the Rockman.EXE universe, so I'm making it up here.) Let's see... We got the Axe, the Holy Water, the Knife, the Crucifix, the Holy Book, the Time Stopper, the MagiCrystal, and the Angel Dust. Wait a minute... Holy water, crucifix, holy book...? What a coincidence that the undead rage in NetCity before I got these... NumberMan could've used these" Higsby said, thinking of his wounded NetNavi, which was ambushed by a strange cloaked Navi with a scythe when the first wave of enemies attacked the cybercity.

"Don't tell me yours got beaten too!" Lan said, again mentally ranting about Wily. "Yeah... Huh? Did MegaMan run into trouble?" the nerd asked, catching the way Lan asked his question. "Yeah... A rogue program got him and kidnapped Roll..." Lan said, his voice quieting down as he got his PET out and checked MegaMan's condition. "Huh? Hey! He's almost healed! Only 2 minutes until he's a-ok" he said, at least glad that the lost arm was repaired without any complications. "Healing programs, don't buy a PET without one" Higsby said, checking his own PET.

---------------

MegaMan was tormented by the sounds of Roll's cries and Agent Smith's cold laughter as he began to stir within his home page. He opened his eyes and shook his head, determined to get that Agent's laugh out of his head. He saw Lan looking at him and gave a weak grin. "Lan? You're alive?" asked the navi, remembering Smith's taunts about Lan's supposed death. "Why wouldn't I be?" Lan said, wondering what's up with MegaMan. The Blue Bomber began explaining his encounter with Agent Smith.EXE and Roll's kidnapping. In turn, Lan explained about the invasion, Dr. Wily's hand in it, and Maylu being taken. "So... I guess it's time to go stop World 3 again, eh?" MegaMan said, as if he was expecting the evil organization to strike yet again. "They'll never stop, ya know" Lan replied, his anger toward Wily subsiding for now. "Well then...Let's go kick some ass!" the navi said, smirking as if the whole thing was a minor offensive. Lan knew Mega was trying to cheer him up, despite that he was nearly killed by some thug in a suit and his own girlfriend was taken.

In rough times like this, Lan always felt like his job as NetSavior was easier with MegaMan around to help. Then again, his close friends also had something to do with that feeling of confidence. Dex the pudgy comedy relief, Yai the warm-hearted spoiled brat, Tory the brave midget, Chaud the emotionless nemesis, and of course, Maylu the girl next door. However... who said killing Dracula was an easy job?

"So can we have those old chips?" Tory asked Higsby, curiously. "Only if ya pay me" the nerd said, reminding him that although he's a friend to them, this place is a place of business. "That's my department, Tory" Yai said, stepping in. "Yo, guys! Any other chips ya want or shall we just take Higsby's latest?" she asked before taking out her wallet. With that question, the gang looked around for any chips that might be worth getting. Of course, they all took a few of Higsby's many rare chips instead of the more common ones, which added up to be quite an expensive shopping trip. "Yikes! Jeez, guys! Ya think ya really need all this?" she asked, worried that she won't have enough cash on her. "Well, this is an important rescue mission, ya know" Lan answered, giving her an apologetic look. "Sigh... I had to ask if you all wanted more chips. I just _had_ to ask..." Yai grumbled, checking her wallet.

Higsby, after a moment of thinking about what they're using the chips for, decided on something. "Alright... I'll give ya guys a 90% off deal on these chips, but only because you're going on a dangerous mission that could get you all killed. Ya know, I worry about ya sometimes. You guys are always goin' out there, fightin' off every organization that dares challenge ya. If you guys come back dead, I'm gonna snap!" Higsby said, reducing the total price to a very reasonable price for Yai. "Alright already... We'll be careful then" Dex said, now realizing that his family might be worried about him.

"Thank you so much, Higsby. As I told everyone else I met today, we'll get everyone back" Lan said, smiling thankfully at his nerdy friend, who nodded at him with a look that silently said 'Good luck'. And with all said and done, they all said a good bye to Higsby and went back in Yai's limo, which drove off toward Yai's personal hanger, where her AyanoJet was located...

---------------

Lan and his friends weren't the only ones that were planning on investigating the invasion. Somewhere on the south side of Dentech, a curry delivery truck was driving along, its inhabitants clearly disturbed by the attack. Count Zap claimed shotgun and Yahoot ended up driving. Maddy lay in the back, wounded by a sword-carrying zombie that bit her a couple of times and an imp that tried to burn her to death. Blood was flowing freely from the bite wound on her right arm. Her boyfriend, Mr. Match, was sitting beside her prone form. He had saved her from being taken by a vampire minion.

"Who th' bloody hell would do somethin' like this?!" raged Mr. Match, punching the wall of the truck, denting it. "Hey! Calm down, Match! We're as clueless as you are!" Count Zap snapped, now groaning that he'll have to buff that dent out. "His mind is clouded with rage. But it is understandable. All they wanted was a nice evening to themselves on a first date, but chaos would not allow that, sadly..." said Yahoot, driving. "Yeah. Guess you're right. They wanted to screw when they got back to their room later, but the invasion happened" Zap said, guessing what the monk meant. "Zap!!!" Match snarled. "Oh, did I guess wrong? Ok, I'll try again. They wanted to make love when they got back!" Zap taunted, trying to lighten things up, completely unaware of the Scot trying to resist the urge to strangle him on the spot. "Count Zap, you are perhaps the most insensitive person I have ever met. The undead have revolted and attacked poor Maddy and all you can think of is what she and Match would do had the date been successful" Yahoot said, a hint of iciness in his voice. "What?! Oh come on! She'll get better! She's too stubborn to die from a few bites from some nutter from some psycho cult! The undead... Please!" Zap countered, clearly not believing Yahoot's bit about undead actually existing.

"Zap... I believe what he's sayin'... I saw th' thing that bit me Maddy. It wasn't even alive! Its skin was peelin' righ' off, it didn't bleed when I cut it with me knife, and it took a whole lot o damage to bring that sucker down... It was horrible, lad... Then there was that imp... Ugly li'l punk... Took me a few minutes to punt it to th' next county. And then... it came... I believe it was a vampire, judging by its fangs it bared at Maddy. It tried to bite her, so I fought it wit' me own strength. As you can see, what you see is basically how we ended up after that fight... You found us a while afterward and here we are, drivin' around like this" he explained, his tone strained. He fell silent, staring at his girlfriend again and praying that the zombie bites had not poisoned her or whatever zombie bites are supposed to do...

"Hey, doesn't that limo look familiar?" Zap asked, looking at the vehicle ahead of them. Yahoot looked closer at the limo. "Yes... It does... It is one of Yai Ayano's limos. It looks like Lan and his friends are up to something. I wonder if they were affected by the attack too" the monk said calmly. "Let's follow them, see what they're doing" Zap suggested. "What about Maddy and finding a hospital that hasn't been trashed?" the monk retorted, glaring. "Relax, friend. We have a pretty good first-aid kit and Mr. Match would do just about anything to keep her alive. She's in pretty good hands" Zap said, looking back at the couple. "Fine then. But if anything happens to make her condition worse, it's on your head" Yahoot declared, driving after the limo.

---------------

The limo drove past Lan and Maylu's neighborhood. Lan saw that a couple of the houses had suffered some damage. "Wait! Hold on! Stop!" Lan cried, which caused the limo to screech to a halt. Lan ran out and sped toward his house, hoping that his mother wasn't among the captured. Yai got out and ran after him, realizing why he stopped the limo. "Feh. Mama's boy..." Chaud huffed, still thinking that they should just fly to Wily's immediately. "Don't you have a family?" Dex glared, utterly appalled by what the skunk-haired rich boy had just said. "They're safe. No zombie could break my mansion's security, unlike Midget Girl's place..." replied Chaud, without so much as a grunt of annoyance. Tory and Dex just sighed, fed up with Chaud's arrogance.

Lan burst through the front door and looked around. "Mom? Mom! Where are you!" he cried as he looked through the undamaged house. Unfortunately, there was no response, no sound of any movement other than Lan's. "Where'd she go...?" he sighed, double checking his mom's room. Yai caught up to him. "Don't worry, Lan. The house doesn't appear trashed. Maybe she didn't get taken" she suggested, taking a look around and wondering how average teens could live in 'dumps' like this. "Yeah... Maybe she was out and she avoided the whole attack. Yeah. Those freaks did hit only half the city. Yeah! She must've been running a night errand. But... Where is she now...?" Lan wondered, his sudden relief put out.

Yai couldn't think of where Mrs. Hikari could've gone. The two stepped out and started back to the limo when they heard a door opening next door. It was the front door of Maylu's house. Two women stepped out, crying, their husbands trying to console them. "Huh? Mom? Dad? Hey!" Lan called, stopping the women from crying. Faster than you could say 'Mama's boy', Mrs. Hikari ran over and clung tightly to Lan. "My baby! My dear Lan... You're ok... I'm so glad you came home..." Lan's mother sobbed, refusing to release her son, despite his struggling for air. "I'm... choking...!" Lan gasped, his face a vivid blue. "I'm sorry!" Mrs. Hikari said, loosening her grip. Then, she got a look at him. "What's with the black clothes, dear?" she asked, wondering if it has anything to do with the attack the night before.

"Lan...? Where's Maylu...?" Mrs. Sakurai said, looking at him in a concerned way. Lan felt a wave of guilt wash over him again. Again, the realization of letting his best friend's mother down hit him like a sack of steel bricks. "Was she...?" she stammered, trying to stay composed. "Was she... taken by those... things...?" she finally got out. Lan found the ground a more interesting sight at the moment. His mind absolutely refused to go through with it and save himself from the scorn and the blame, but his heart knew that he had to tell her, blame or no blame. "Y...yes... We were attacked during dinner... I tried to defend her... I was beaten easily... She was grabbed... I'm sorry I couldn't do a better job protecting her... I really am sorry..." Lan explained, bracing himself for a mother's rage, his eyes tightly closed.

But the yelling did not come. Instead came more sobbing. But Mrs. Sakurai wasn't done talking yet. "Lan... Thank you for at least trying to help her... Considering that those... things... were probably very strong, you put your life at risk to save Maylu..." she sniffled, flinching at the though of the monsters she saw on the morning news and the crashes and screams she heard the night before. "Maylu'll come back... I'll make sure she does..." Lan said, the gentle redhead flooding into his mind again.

A few minutes later, Yai and Lan said their goodbyes to the Sakurais and the Hikaris, promising to help Maylu. But on the way back to the limo, they heard the sound of voices arguing. "What's going on?" Lan asked as they saw a curry delivery truck parked next to the limo. "World 3!" Yai cried, pointing out the familiar forms of an old, thin monk and a blond, crazy-looking rock guitarist. Chaud, Dex, and Tory were arguing with them. Lan and Yai ran toward the scene. Lan announced his presence by tackling Count Zap and beating the snot out of him. "Like we really need trouble from you now!!!" Lan snapped, strangling the rocker. "Let... me... go!!!" Zap coughed out, trying to shake off the wild NetSavior.

"Lay off, Lan! They weren't picking a fight! We were just arguin' about our curry tab! Apparently, they miscalculated" Dex shouted, trying to get through to the crazed Lan. "Oh... My bad..." Lan said, letting go of Zap and backing off, now embarrassed. "Well, you guys are such pigs! Ya eat more than you can pay for!" Zap said, fuming. "Look, we'll have Yai cover for us, ok?! Let's just calm down and see what we can do about your wounded!" Tory countered. "Huh? Who's injured?" Lan and Yai asked.

"Maddy... She got bit a couple of times by a zombie and burned by an imp with a temper, so says Mr. Match. He's in the back of the truck with her..." Zap said, losing the attitude. 'One more person to avenge...' thought Lan, remembering the time when the pink-haired spitfire saved him from one of Magnet Gauss' traps. Lan silently walked to the back of the truck, which was open, and looked in. "Lan" acknowledged Match, staring at Maddy, not even bothering to ask about Lan's different outfit. Lan nodded and walked toward the girl, cringing a little at the sight of her ravaged arm. "Feh... You're not the only one with girl troubles, buddy..." Lan said, explaining his story.

---------------

In the cyber world, Glyde and MegaMan also encountered a huge argument. ProtoMan was beating up a soaked FireMan, IceMan stood near a frozen WackoMan, and GutsMan hammered his point to both MagicMan and ElecMan. "Enough already!!!" shouted MegaMan, stopping the entire NetRumble. "Guts was just taking care of business" GutsMan said, annoyed that Mega stopped the fight. "What's going on here?" Glyde asked calmly, breaking WackoMan free from his icy prison.

"They came, we talked, the subject of the money we owe came up, we fought" stated ProtoMan, acting cool as usual. "Well?! Whaddya expect?! Your NetOps are just a buncha curry hogs!" FireMan bellowed, still trying to dry himself off from an attack from IceMan. "Even I couldn't eat as much as your NetOps!" snapped WackoMan, burning with rage over what happened to his NetOp. "I thought we had this settled by now! You must've added somethin' wrong!" IceMan retorted. And so the argument continued, leaving Mega and Glyde helpless to stop the argument. "Man, will we ever get along with these guys? Wily goes necromancer and they argue about debt..." Mega said, getting a headache. "I'm not sure. At least they don't attack us much anymore" Glyde remarked. "True" said the Blue Bomber.

---------------

"This is too depressin', lad... Wily did some terrible evil wit' Grave wit' that digital hell hound, but now he's messin' around with necromancy?" Match growled lightly. "Dr. Wily controls those undead...He'll be a real menace to all of mankind if he keeps doing things like this..." Lan said. As he did to everyone else, he told Mr. Match what Miyu had told him. "Ya gotta be pullin' me leg, laddie! A vampire lord helping Wily! Ha!" began the Scot. But then he remembered that the zombies and imps were real. What right had he to laugh about possible vampire kings after what he went through? "D'oh! Ne'er mind me taunt. Anyways, ye sure ye can put a stop to all this before the undead strike again?" he asked. "Dead sure" Lan responded, not laughing at his own unintended pun. "We're definitely gonna stop Dr. Wily" Lan said.

At that moment, outside the curry truck with the others, Yahoot remembered something, something that happened around a month back, something involving a dark altar and a back beam of energy. "Zap... Remember a month back when we went spelunking for rare chips and we accidentally released something? When you were hallucinating about an apocalypse to Dentech?" Yahoot suddenly asked, just as Dex was about to snap from one of Zap's verbal jabs. "Huh? Hmm... Now that you bring that up, yeah. I remember. Oh! I get it! Whatever was in there must've finally struck. Damn! How could I forget that?!" Zap said, slapping himself on the forehead. "Oh yeah. Match was on the news that day, trying to warn us all..." Tory said, recalling that day when he witnessed that black beam by looking out a window at the school.

"But how does that prove they pay cheap?" asked ElecMan, the navis listening in when Yahoot interrupted the argument. "Wrong topic, man. Anyways, if it's that sealed thing, then we should go after that!" FireMan agreed, finally igniting his main burners. "That 'sealed thing' formed an alliance with Wily. It is actually Count Dracula, Lord of the Night. Lan heard this from Miyu, the city's best psychic" Yai said, finally getting somewhere with this conversation. "I've heard of her! About 90% of the things she predicts come true. Could it be true that she's seen somethin' about this alliance?" Zap asked Yahoot. "Very possible, my friend. Remember when she fought Lan in the N1 Grand Prix? The only thing she got wrong was the fact that she lost and how she lost. Everything else came out as predicted. We should tell Mr. Match about this development" advised the monk.

And so, Zap and Yahoot informed Match about what happened a month ago. "Shoot! How could I've forgotten about that incident! Sigh... I guess my warning went unheeded..." Match said, thinking of the few deaths he'd seen while trying to get Maddy out of the chaos. "Well, your warning was pretty out there, man..." Lan said, thinking. "By the way, Match. About Wily-" Zap said, before being cut off. "Yeah, I know about his alliance wit' th' King of Vampires, thank ye very much" Match said,

At that sentence, Lan decided that it was time to continue the trip to Yai's personal jet. "We're outta here, then. Sorry about Maddy..." Lan said, stepping out of the truck. "I think there's a working hospital a couple miles northeast of here. Take Maddy there and tell 'em that Yai Ayano will pay for her care. They know me over there. It's the least I can do for ya, since you all haven't been causing any trouble lately" said Yai, getting a glimpse of the fallen woman and shuddering. "And you guys have great curry!" said Dex, adding in his two cents. "Thanks..." said Match, bowing a little. "Your charitable help is certainly appreciated" said Yahoot. Then, the Ex-World 3 went back in the truck and drove off toward the hospital.

---------------

Less than a half hour later, the AyanoJet was boarded and in the air, headed toward the modified castle known to some as Castlevania. The group spoke little, anxious about the upcoming mission. They know that despite the fact that they're well armed, they're still in danger of a serious beatdown or even death. However, that didn't stop MegaMan from alerting Lan about an email that he didn't even notice all this time.

"Yo Lan, ya got mail!" Mega called, snapping the teenage hero out of his thoughts. "Huh? Mail? Now?" he asked. "Hmm... Actually, according to this, it came during the attack. It's from Brightland" the navi said, scanning the mail. "Princess Pride? Open the mail" Lan said immediately. "Ok, Lan" Mega responded. "It's a visual message, by the way" he added before the PET screen went blank. Then, an image started to appear with a familiar blonde in it...

"My dearest knight, Lan Hikari! If you're getting this, and I really hope that you do, please come to my aid!" cried Princess Pride, as an explosion was heard. "My kingdom is under attack! My guards tell me that the enemy consists of zombies and gargoyles and giant spiders and...!!!" she was interrupted as a nearby wall broke away, revealing a giant demon. "No...! No!!! Please! Stay back! Don't come any closer! I'm unarmed...! No! Don't grab me! Lan-kun!!! Please help me!!! Kyaaaaaaaa-" the screen turned to static mid-scream. "Princess!!!" Lan cried, hoping against hope that Pride somehow escaped. Mega had done the favor of showing the others the email so that everyone wouldn't ask a thousand questions.

"Pride too? Damn..." Dex said, frowning. Tory remained silent, a little scared of the giant demon. "Princesses, they always get kidnapped..." Chaud said, keeping his cool. "Lan...? It'll be ok... I bet Wily hasn't done anything to her yet. I bet she's just imprisoned, like Maylu-chan..." Yai said, looking at him. Lan growled, imagining Wily laughing in his face and rubbing in the fact that he's got to yet another of his friends. "Pride-chan... That's it...! Wily's gone too far now!" Lan snarled loudly, glad that he had vented some of his rage at Count Zap earlier. "Someone needs anger management..." Chaud said, annoyed by his nemesis' temper. "Look who's talking, Mr. 'I'm-better-than-everyone'..." stated Dex calmly. Chaud growled in warning. "Ok, people. That's enough. Remember our plan of attack. Land a few miles out and make a beeline to Castlevania. Let's hope there's a way to sneak in. If not, then we just attack and storm the place" Yai commanded, back in Drill Sergeant Mode. "Got it, Yai" they all said, making sure they have all their weapons ready.

"Look at us. We're like a small SWAT team or something. Ha, always wondered what this would be like, going into enemy territory, armed and ready to fight..." Dex mused, clicking his shotgun. "You play too much SOCOM II, buddy" Lan replied, calm again, his new whip in his hand. "You guys ready to rescue some NetWomen?" Tory asked the navis. "Oh yeah!" they all said. MegaMan thought of Roll again. GutsMan hoped that when this mission ends, he'd at least have one girl that likes him. "There it is! Let's find a clearing and land this thing before we're detected" Yai said, killing the mood.

The castle known as Castlevania was a metallic monstrosity. A huge, black behemoth of a base, it had a menacing look to it. The heroes couldn't figure out what was more threatening, the sharp, blood-covered spikes protruding throughout certain areas of the walls and roof, the tall thin towers that looked more like devil horns than anything else, or the size of the place, which looked like it could take up a few blocks of Dentech City. They were silent as the pilot found a clearing a couple of miles from Castlevania and landed. "Ok. Nina, for your safety, you may want to lock yourself in after we exit. Who knows what's out there now... We'll contact you through radio when we need to get on board" Yai said, talking to the female pilot, the last remaining servant of the Ayano Mansion. "Yes, Miss Yai. I really hope you succeed..." Nina said, worried about this whole fiasco. "Thanks for the concern. We'll see you later" Yai said, praying that her last servant doesn't get killed out here.

The hatch opened, revealing the forest beyond. Lan stepped off the plane first, whip at the ready. Yai followed, then Chaud, Dex, and lastly Tory, all with one of their weapons ready. "I know this ain't SOCOM, but we should at least remember some of the strategies we planned in the game, in case we have to fight out here" Dex remarked, looking around for trouble. "Maybe... Let's keep moving. That way, right?" Tory said, walking in the direction the plane was facing. "Yeah. Move out, people!" Yai barked, sending everyone walking with Tory. The others thought that her army camouflage outfit was perfect for her current attitude.

They walked deep into the forest, no one speaking. A path was found, leading toward Castlevania, so they started down it. All of them were alert, ready for anything. But something caught Lan's ears. He looked back to see what the noise was. Nothing. Shrugging, he resumed walking. But the noise was heard again, like feet accidentally rustling grass. He looked back again. Then he saw something that looked like a human running into the mess of trees. He couldn't tell who it was, it was too fast. "Huh?" Lan uttered, staring at the place where the figure disappeared. "Somethin' out there, Lan?" Dex asked, wondering why he keeps looking behind. "I think so. I saw someone running into the trees there. Could be an enemy or somethin'..." Lan said, looking at the area for a few more moments before walking again. "We're already spotted? But we just got here" Dex said, wondering if Wily will know of their presence soon. "That jerk may have a lot of guards out here. If one doesn't want his ass kicked again after a long losing streak, he would play very defensively after an attack" said Yai, grimly.

But they hadn't run into any guard at all. Soon, they found themselves at the end of the forest, the abomination of a castle in plain view. Yai looked at the entrance area through a pair of binoculars. "Strange... I don't see any guards at all. Is Wily being lax on security today?" Yai asked. "I thought you said that Wily's forces would be recovering from that offensive" Chaud said, smirking at the fact that Yai has been proven an idiot. Or so he thought. "I did say that, but even if most of his army is reorganizing themselves, that doesn't mean that he couldn't have some form of security. However, the drawbridge is up, so we'd have a hard time entering anyway" she snapped, glaring at him. Chaud still thought of her as an idiot.

"Should we try to get across the moat?" Lan asked. "If we had a raft..." Dex said, agreeing with Lan. "We don't know if that's water or cleverly disguised acid" Yai said sharply, causing the two to abandon that plan. Lan walked toward the entrance, looking at the drawbridge, thinking. "Lan! Hey! Get back here!" Yai said, running out after him. The others followed. Lan then looked down at the moat. Indeed, it looked like water, but was it water...? He didn't dare try to swim in it. "Lan! Are you nuts!? We could be spotted out here!" Yai snapped, glaring at her friend.

Suddenly, they heard Dex gasp. "Guys...! Was that big eye always there!?" he stammered, pointing toward a red eye that had opened up on the drawbridge. The eye had a vertical slit for a pupil. "This castle's alive?!!" Tory said, his hair standing on end. No one had time to answer as the moat suddenly became as wild as the most dangerous rapids. From inside the moat came the skeletal remains of a giant sea serpent, its head still wrapped in its flesh. It had terrible, sickly-green eyes, a mouth with razor sharp teeth, and a dragon-like nose that kept spouting toxic smoke with every breath. It roared at its new opponents, who all frantically drew a weapon.

The roar, however, wasn't just to intimidate the NetSaviors. As soon as Lan and co. drew their weapons of choice, the ground inside the forest began to erupt, zombies bursting free from their confines. The heroes turned at the shaking of the earth, seeing the hidden army of undead showing themselves. Each zombie, after freeing themselves, started trudging toward the 5 heroes. To make matters worse, the zombies were all extremely hungry...

"Uhh... Are you happy now, Yai...? You got your security..." Dex said, unsure of whether to aim his shotgun at the dead sea serpent or the small undead army.

---------------

Inside Castlevania, at the top floor, there were 5 people in the large throne room, 3 of these people were tied to black crosses that were nailed to the wall. The young woman in the center of the imprisoned trio was Maylu Sakurai, who was frightened ever since she showed up. But scared as she was, she never stopped hoping that Lan and the others would show up and beat up Wily. The woman at Maylu's left was none other than Princess Pride, who was unconscious from fright. Maylu thought of how she always had to compete with Pride over Lan, but she still considered her a friend. To Maylu's right was her own NetNavi, Roll. She had been given the ability to cross over to the real world, like Rush, thanks to Agent Smith.EXE. Roll was awake, glaring at the hoverchair that held Dr. Wily. The maniacal doctor was sitting next to the throne of Dracula, who was contemplating the next offense and which female out of all their prisoners should be his first meal.

Suddenly, an alarm went off and a huge monitor appeared, showing Wily, Dracula, and the girls an image of Lan, Dex, Tory, Yai, and Chaud, all in dark outfits, being sandwiched between the moat monster and a big gang of zombies. "Lan!" cried Maylu, immediately worrying about her crush. Wily just laughed loudly, causing Maylu and Roll to glare at him. "I knew Lan Hikari and MegaMan couldn't resist trying to save everybody, especially their 3 girlfriends! Hahaha! They probably didn't expect this trap!" gloated the mad doctor. "My minions will crush these pitiful intruders, Dr. Wily. You can be sure that they won't ever enter this castle... unless they're undead first..." snickered Dracula, which caused Maylu and Roll to worry more about their friends. "Please survive, guys... You can do it..." muttered Maylu, watching the tense situation.

---------------

The battle had started when Dex had fired the first shot, knocking the arms and/or head of three of the trudging zombies. The rest of them ran toward them in a clumsy fashion, attacking. Dex kept shooting and reloading, occasionally punching out one that happened to come across his path. "Never cross a dirty friar!" he spat, smashing another zombie's face in. Chaud calmly took out his Uzi and started mowing them down while standing his ground. Tory drew his lance and started to hack through the dead denizens, being careful to watch out for biting zombies from all sides. Yai, like an expert lady shinobi, drew her katanas and chopped the head off the first one she was attacked by before going on to the next one, jamming both blades into its gut.

Lan, determined to save the world from this latest evil, uncoiled the Vampire Killer and started bringing down zombie after zombie, tearing an arm or leg off, throwing one in the moat or at an attacking group, or just whipping them to bloody shreds. But as the battle continued, the undead moat serpent grew bored of sitting on the sidelines, watching the wimps get their butts burned. The skeletal serpent drew in a breath and prepared to unleash a blast of unholy fire. Luckily, Tory noticed this after he gutted another zombie in the throat. "Everybody scatter!!!" he cried before breaking through a mosh pit of undead. Yai jumped on the heads of a few zombies, Mario-style, trying to get away. Chaud walked quickly forward, still mowing down the pushing opposition. Dex just ran frantically, not wanting to risk accidentally shooting a friend while running. Lan flung the whip to a nearby tree branch and swung away, just as the serpent breathed black fire upon the left behind undead.

The stumbling zombies were burned to ashes by the dark flames of the angry serpent, who now regretted his actions. "We have to fight that now?!!" Yai cried, scared of the moat monster's 'fire power'. "I'm afraid so, Yai-chan!" Lan answered as the flames died down, along with the remaining zombies that were still on fire. The serpent roared madly, infuriated by his own impatience. "Oh man... We're screwed!" Dex griped, starting to think that his shotgun is useless.

---------------

The sound of Dr. Wily's laughter began to scare Maylu, Roll, and the now-conscious Princess Pride as the female trio watched as Lan slowly walked on the burnt ground toward the monstrous water dragon, whip in hand. The serpent was apparently watching the teen approach, wondering how strong he is. Dracula's face was grim, recognizing the whip as the same one that the Belmont family used many times before to foil him and his insane schemes. But the vampire was also curious, as the new owner of the whip was not a Belmont, according to Wily. He began to wonder about the kid's chances of beating the moat monster, coming up with the result that Lan's totally screwed.

"Lan-kun..." Pride said, her face full of concern for 'her most precious knight'. She was amazed at Lan's bravery and mentally added one more reason to the list of why she has strong feelings for him. Roll watched on as Chaud, Tory, Dex, and Yai followed Lan onto the battlefield. "C'mon, guys... Don't get killed!" she said, rooting for them all the way. If her arms could move, she'd be moving them like an over-excited cheerleader by now. "You can do it!" the pink navi cheered. Maylu was scared out of her mind. No, she wasn't afraid of her own death. She was afraid that all of her best friends would have their lives cut short by some undead sea monster. 'C'mon, Lan...' she thought, watching the screen intently, her eyes on Lan the Vampire Hunter.

"This is great! They'll die before they can even set foot in here! Man, how do we come up with such grand defenses?" Wily said, completely ecstatic about the whole scenario. "I don't know, but at least the world will be ours for the taking" replied Dracula, still focusing most of his attention on studying the young man with the Vampire Killer. "Let the games begin, my friends..." sneered Wily to the group of NetSaviors, just as the serpent dove toward Lan, its mouth wide open...

---------------

Ryu-san: Another cliffy, I know. Just thought that'd be a good place to leave on. Hope this was worth the wait from that delay. Keep the reviews coming. Flames may be annoying, but acceptable. By the way, can someone give me a list of viruses that I can use for cannon fodder against MegaMan and the other Navis? I haven't played the Battle Network games, but I don't want to make things seem unspecific, like for example... 'A bunch of different viruses appear. Mega blasts them to pieces.'. But I will if I must.

Coming Attractions: Will the NetSaviors even make it inside Castlevania? If so, what awaits them inside besides Wily and Count Dracula? What will Wily's next move be? What's the deal with that mysterious figure that followed them in the forest? What will the NetNavis encounter when they're jacked into the Dark Network? What's happening back in Dentech? Will the NetAgents and Ex-World 3 get involved? And what the hell have Gauss, Kid Grave, and Bass been up to since that mess with the Grave Virus Beast? Look out for the next chapter 'The Many Roads to Death', coming out as soon as I can get it done.


	6. The Many Roads to Death

Darkness in Dentech City

Ryu-san: Oh man… :ducks thrown objects: Am I late or what! I am sooooo very sorry for taking so long with this chapter. I was suffering through a Writer's Block the size of the sun... Sigh… Now I know how it feels when an author delays for a while and he/she gets reviews saying 'Update already!'. It took me a while to get some ideas cookin'. Finally, I got a few things down for this chappy. Hope the wait was worth it. I also hope that there are people left who're still interested in reading this.

Reviewer Response

Queen Blood-Ruby-Like I said earlier, I apologize very much for the late update. Huge writer's block. It took me a while to reignite my inspiration. Thanks for the love, though. As for the Original Character that Chaud's paired with, you'll see. I hope you'll still be reading this fic.

Cloud Strife Omega-Thanks for the compliments.

DigiDestined of Courage-Momentai to you too, man.

MD 1428-Van Helsing rocks! Loved the movie, so I decided to have Lan wear VH's outfit as a sort of tribute.

Warp da Warp Liger-Alucard may or may not be in there. I'll think about it. As for Drac's sealing in 1797, that's when Symphony of the Night took place. I never played Aria of Sorrow. About Miyu, I bet she just loves collecting mystical items, since she is a psychic. Therefore, she probably found the Vampire Killer while on a vacation or something. Besides, wasn't the Belmont bloodline beginning to thin out in the time of Aria of Sorrow (or so I heard)?

Jill-I'm sure you'll be a cool person to work with if I need help. As I said before, I'm sorry for not updating for a while. Accursed writer's block... Bleh. I hope you'll still want to read my work.

Rock Raider-Thanks for the virus names. I'll think about throwing in the Cutman Bros. Bet it'll be funny.

Ri2-Thank you also for the virus names. Should be useful.

Ok, all questions answered. Now for chapter the sixth.

> > > > > >

Chapter 6: The Many Roads to Death

The following comes from the recent issue of the Dentech Denizen, Dentech City's major newspaper. It had come out at around mid-afternoon, instead of its usual early morning time, due to the top headline…

**The Dead Walk! Majority Of Women Taken!**

In what appears to be the worst all-out ambush since the days of the Great War, hundreds of Dentech citizens were forced to fight those from beyond the grave last night. The sizable army of undead included such mythical beings as zombies, gargoyles, imps, demons, living skeletons, and the occasional cave troll. But no matter what creature attacked, no one was ready for the strike. Thus, many are left either injured or dead. Thankfully, there are more injured than killed, from what police could tell from the latest body count. But still, Dentech City has suffered a terrible defeat.

Also, NetCity has also been partially destroyed by an army of viruses, mostly undead types, led by netnavis that no one has ever seen before. Many netnavis were defeated, partially no thanks to the law against BattleChip use in the cyber city. SciLab has begun rebuilding the damaged areas of NetCity as we speak. There are already rumors of changing the NetCity laws to allow BattleChip use in case of emergencies.

What makes this even worse is that the monsters had an ulterior motive: to kidnap any woman they could get their rotting hands on. And that they did. About 85 of Dentech's female population has been confirmed as having been taken hostage. This percentage includes the female navis inhabiting NetCity. Many wonder why the dead would care about 'getting some tail', to coin a popular phrase. But some figure that the enemy was following somebody's orders. Our newsdesk has been getting tons of phone calls by men with girlfriends, wives, and/or relatives that have been taken, demanding to know why their loved ones were abducted. As a result of the many complaints, there are rumors that a resistance will soon rise to hunt down these undead and take back their girls. Few already say that a small group of warriors have already left Dentech to search for the one responsible.

Up to this point in time, no one claims responsibility for the attack on Dentech. However, there are a few citizens who have received important info on the identity of the mastermind. Late this morning, Dentech's famous psychic, only known as Miyu, claims that Dr. Wily, leader of the defeated crime organization, World 3, has a major role in the attack. She also claims that Wily has teamed up with the mythical vampire, Dracula, in another plot at world domination. Some of those who heard this have denied her, but the question still remains. If an army of undead can exist and attack us, then who can say if Dracula exists or not? Also, Miyu made an additional claim, supporting the aforementioned theory of a small group hunting Wily and Dracula.

In a related story, we have recently learned that our neighbor, the kingdom of Brightland, has also suffered a severe attack, also from undead. Many women have also been taken from Brightland, including the reigning Princess Pride. The Royal Guard reports that they are ashamed that they couldn't do anything about the princess' kidnapping. However, the Guard has learned that Pride was able to send a distress call. The call was directed to Dentech teenager, Lan Hikari, who has put a stop to more than a few evil schemes of both Grave and World 3.

The rebuilding of the demolished parts of Dentech should begin relatively soon. We at the Dentech Denizen wish to express our deepest sympathies for those with kidnapped or killed loved ones. May God have mercy on our souls.

> > > > > >

"Grrrrrr…! Unbelievable!" Commander Beef said, throwing the Dentech Denizen he was reading to the ground, crumpled by rage. "And I thought the Gospel virus was a disaster… This is beyond bad. The real world is now involved in Wily's warpath. Black Rose… Mysteriu… Something needs to be done and fast. We know Lan and his friends went to search for Wily's new base and take him out, but…" he said, slapping his hand on the table to emphasize. "we need to set up some resistance in case those freaks come back for Round 2"

Mysteriu, who had shown up an hour or two ago from being interviewed by the press, was the first to speak. "We should call out the military to patrol the city and arm them with everything. Machine guns, rocket launchers, tanks… We take no chances now. Who knows what Wily has up his sleeve with Dracula co-piloting at the helm" She sounded dead serious. Either she was sick and tired of Wily and decided to let her attitude show it or she was really annoyed by the paparazzi…

"I may be the peaceful one, but I'd have to agree with that… Worst ambush ever…" Black Rose said, mad that a couple of dead orcs trampled all over her garden and nearly killed one of her closest friends, whom she was watching a movie with that night. "Sigh… It's agreed then. I just hope the people can put up with staying indoors for a while until we hear a word of success from Lan. Traffic's gonna be horrid with tanks rolling around…" Beef said, reaching for a phone and preparing to pull some strings with the local army base…

> > > > > >

At one of Dentech's hospitals, Mr. Match was sitting by the resting Maddy, who's now fixed up and bandaged from her wounds. He sat there for hours and hours, amid occasional bathroom runs. He was at least glad that Maddy looks a little better now, despite being very pale. Count Zap and Yahoot had gone to get some of the cafeteria food down in the basement (both of them hoping that the place didn't have mystery meat). So, Match watched her resting, the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, the pained yet peaceful look on her face, her messy hair which is still a mess…

He groaned again, as he did often when he remembered seeing the zombie sneak up on her and bite her. 'Stop th' mopin', man. It ain' your fault. It's Wily's. He just had ta go an' make a mess outta things… An' ta think we once worked for that scum, eh Maddy…?' the Scotsman thought, miserable. Just as he thought that, he was snapped out of it when he saw the pink-haired beauty start shivering like crazy. "So… c.c…c..cold… Can't… feel… anything…" Maddy groaned, whimpering like a scared little girl. Match felt even more depressed as he covered Maddy with another blanket, hoping that'll warm her up. "There ye go, lass… It's ok… You're safe wit' me" he calmly told her. "Cold… I'm cold… and hungry… and numb…Help me…" she mumbled, still shivering. "You're fine, hun. C'mon, just relax an' rest an' you'll be up an' kickin' arse in no time" Match said, beginning to worry. Deep inside, he knew that if he came across Dr. Wily in person again, he'd kill the old doc off without feeling any regret whatsoever.

> > > > > >

"Heh. With the moat monster distracting those intrepid heroes, what say we talk about a second attack, keep the cities on the run?" Wily sneered, confident that Lan will finally die at last. "That will come later. Besides, don't you know what zombie bites do to living humans?" Dracula responded, standing in front of Maylu ("No! Leave me alone, bat!") and looking intently at her neck, as if judging how ripe her blood is. "No. I haven't read up on horror myths lately" the mad doctor said, curious. "Well then… Keep an eye on your news shows or whatever you call them" Dracula snickered, scaring Maylu more.

> > > > > >

"Match! Help us! Dead people! I see dead people!" Zap yelled as he crashed into Maddy's room. Yahoot followed, noticeably pale. "The dead walk the halls! We saw it! We passed the morgue on the way back and suddenly the morgue door opened and out came those that died in that attack! They were trying to eat us!" the monk wheezed, silently cursing the flights of stairs. "What! How can you tell they were dead an' not loonies?" Match asked. "They themselves were partially eaten, man! Most likely by zombies…" Zap said, hoping that the zombies didn't see them come in Maddy's room. "Bitten by zombies? Oh no! Maddy!" the Scotsman said, turning to look at the quivering woman. "So… hungry…" she whimpered. Then, she sees Match. "Why… Mr. Match… You certainly look… quite delicious lately…" she said, suddenly slurring. "No… No! It's starting! Snap her out of it, quickly!" Yahoot snapped, seeing the famished look that suddenly got into Maddy's eyes. "Maddy, stop it! Don' let death win!" Match said, grabbing her and shaking enough to startle anyone. "Huh? Wha? What's happening, Match…?" she said, weak again.

"You're fine, Maddy. Everythin's gonna be fine. I promise" Match said, hugging her. "I'd pick on him if it weren't for the zombie situation…" Zap whispered to Yahoot. "At least you show a little respect…" Yahoot whispered back, rolling his eyes. "C'mon. We gotta make sure tha' everyone who's still alive gets away from this horror house!" Match said, carrying Maddy. "Alright, but if a zombie bites me and I become one, I'm kickin' your ass" Zap warned, opening the door. "Not funny!" Yahoot snapped.

> > > > > >

Lan was getting the most exercise he'd ever gotten in one day. Was he just motivated to? No. Was he late for school again? Not this time. Was an undead monster chasing him? Actually, yes. Lan jumped aside, again avoiding the moat monster's jaws, and cracked the Vampire Killer at him, snapping at the side of its head. Meanwhile, Dex was trying to figure out how to use the holy 'weapons' that a friar usually has. "Uhh.. Let's see. A crucifix? Do I throw that or somethin'? A Bible? Wonder if readin' it to that waterlogged dork'll kill it… Holy water? How does that work against this thing? Besides, that thing's already wet…" he said to himself while Chaud was running back and forth, unloading his Uzi bullets into the beast while dodging it's tail. "Quit monkeying around and use something!" shouted Tory, who was trying to shoot at the serpent's eyes. Yai was at a distance, aiming her custom-made sniper rifle at the giant dead snake. However, the serpent was moving around too fast to get a good bead on it. "Grrrr… At least it hasn't chowed down on anyone yet…" she grumbled.

Lan began to wonder how many times he'll have to snap his whip in order to kill the boss monster in front of him. He snapped it again. This time, the whip curled around the beast's neck. Lan took this as an opportunity and started climbing up, despite its erratic movement. When he reached the top of the whip, he drew his broadsword, and jammed it up the serpents lower jaw. "Eat that, ya freak show!" he cried as the dead moat guardian howled in pain. Lan barely saw it snap its bony tail up at him, so he jumped off, taking his sword and unraveling the whip, just in time for the serpent to whip itself, weakening it more. Yai used this distraction to aim her rifle and fire, hitting it in the forehead, just as Dex hurled a bottle of holy water, grenade style, at it. The glass broke on it's upper body and the blessed liquid caused the serpent to catch on fire while it bled. Tory finished it off with a few well placed pistol shots, sending the flaming serpent falling back into the moat to die.

As it burned, the heroes heaved sighs of relief as they regrouped and watched the hellish thing die. "Man… I bet there's worse than this inside…" Dex said. Lan had a serious look on his face. "Well… Whatever's in there, I'll take it on. I'll do whatever it takes to save Maylu, Roll, Pride, and everyone else Wily's taken" he said. "You hear me, Wily! I'll get you, just like I got your little lapdog here!" he shouted, pointing to the charred serpent.

> > > > > >

"Grrrrrrrrrr! GRRRRR! HOW DARE THAT BRAT MOCK ME! I'll show him yet!" stormed Wily as he heard Lan's warning. Maylu, Roll, and Pride laughed at this until Dracula hissed at them to shut up. "Open the gates! Release the dogs of war! Let them rip these heroes to shreds!" Wily ranted, stomping his feet in rage. Dracula sneered and changed the channels on one of the floating monitors to the Dentech News to try and prove to Wily that his notion of the effects of zombie bites was true.

> > > > > >

A minute or two later, the drawbridge to the gigantic fortress slowly opened up. The entrance appeared to lead into pure darkness from what the NetSaviors could tell. Darkness that could eat anyone alive… "They check in, but they don't check out…" Tory commented. "We're gonna make sure that we're checking out of this roach motel" Yai said, ready to enter. Lan just nodded, giving the silent command that they follow, and walked across the drawbridge. The gang went in after him, somewhat nonplussed by the darkness.

As soon as they stepped inside, blood-red candles suddenly lit themselves, casting an eerie glow. The lobby looked like the beginning of a rich Satanist's dream mansion. A few pieces of menacingly fancy, black furniture were lying around, designed for the S & M set. Armchairs with spiked armrests, a loveseat that apparently electrocutes any couple dumb enough to sit on it, a table with bloodied razor blades all around its edges, accompanied by four chairs with shackles attached to them. Here and there on the walls were pictures depicting the monsters and minions of Satan himself, some too grotesque for Tory and Yai to take.

"Wily's a psycho… Plain and simple…" Dex said, horrified by one of the disgusting paintings. Yai ran outside and hurled into the moat of unholy water. Even Lan's stomach began to churn, despite his determination to save the captured overriding his urge to vomit. From his PET, MegaMan looked around the surroundings and let out a groan of dispair. "God, I hope Roll didn't have to sit on one of those seats…" he said, trying not to think of the many ways his best friend/love interest could die just from the stuff in the lobby. "You no worry. Roll in CyberWorld, not real world, guts" GutsMan replied, also repulsed by the scenery. "Problem there, Guts. Roll could be imprisoned in this base's network. That could be just as terrible" IceMan muttered. MegaMan began to worry, his cybernetic mind conjuring terrifying images. "Nice going, guts!" GutsMan snapped, stomping his feet in annoyance. "Well, pardon me for being serious" the cyber-eskimo countered. "This place is too horrid for a girl like Yai to be in…" Glyde said, daring to look at one of the Satanist portraits. "Relax, ya butler. It was Yai's choice to come here" ProtoMan calmly stated. "For once, he's got a point there, man. At least give her credit for wanting to help her friends" MegaMan said, attempting to get his mind off of those paintings. "Well… You are right, I guess… She does consider Ms. Maylu her best friend" the servant navi said, thinking.

Yai came back from the drawbridge, a gross taste in her mouth. "Nobody mention those pics to me…" she said, surly. Lan took a look around. He saw stairs leading to the second floor walkways. He saw quite a few doors up there leading to other rooms and halls. He saw a few doors on the first floor also. " Looks like this place branches out here. Hate to say it, but… looks like we're gonna have to split up…" sighed Lan. Dex groaned. "Aww… fine… I'm just a dirty friar, but at least I got a shotgun, some killer blades, and a whole lotta holy water" he said, again punning on his outfit. "Don't forget your Bible" Tory said, lightly snickering. "What am I gonna do with that? Throw it and hope for paper cuts?" Dex asked, wondering what Tory meant. "Everyone hates paper cuts, ya know…" Chaud said, clearly not impressed by their joking. "Well, if we're gonna split up, then we might as well get going before Wily sends a welcoming committee here" Yai shrugged, loading another clip of bullets into her sniper rifle. "Yeah… Well, I'll be off. Good luck, ya guys!" Lan said, using the whip to propel himself to the walkway on the second floor, apparently already a master of that. "Showoff…" muttered Chaud as the others said their 'later's and chose a door…

Little did they know, there was something watching them. The red eye that was watching them from the drawbridge was on the ceiling of the huge room, gazing down at them and knowing that they're all alone now…

> > > > > >

"WHAT THE HELL! Taking over DenTech should've been MY job!" old man Gauss snarled, crumpling up his copy of the Dentech Denizen and throwing it aside. "I can't believe Wily would do this without my knowing. I could've at least had some part in this. That old fool!" he ridiculed, mad that this happened just before he could launch his next plan. "Feh… Well, while Wily backs off for now, I'm gonna do something" he sneered, changing his plans around. He laughed maniacally as the perfect idea came to him. "That's it! I'll go over there and… Hehehe! 'Tis perfect! Begin Operation: Damage Control!" he called, heading for one of his jets and flew off, heading for Dentech…

> > > > > >

"Match, I'm hungry…" Maddy moaned as she drooled, staring hungrily at Match's flesh as he carried her on his back. "It's ok, Maddy. We'll get ye some food soon. We jus' haveta get ev'rybody out first" he calmly replied as he ran around in the hospital with Yahoot and Zap, warning the few humans they meet and kicking the butts of any zombies that stumbled by. They had tried to contain the zombies, but the morgue was abandoned by the time they got there. So they tried to go for an intercom, however, they couldn't find one in the basement, thus the running around and warning people the old-fashioned way.

"I'm betting we can find it in the main lobby" said Yahoot, who knew that all along. "Hey! That's where I'm runnin' to now. I jus' thought we'd find one in here too, so I checked" Match said, defensive. "No time for arguments, y'all. Let's just rock our way to the first floor and get to that lobby" Zap said, seeing an elevator up ahead. Zap skids to a stop and presses the up button quickly and repeatedly. "Hurry up… Hurry! Before everyone dies, for cryin' out loud!" he snapped, freaking out. The door slid open after his little rant and the Ex-World 3 ran in.

The elevator started its ascent to ground level. "Just a little longer…" Match said, hoping that Maddy can still hold off the unholy urge to feed. "Hun… gry…" moaned Maddy. The half-minute seemed like an eternity before the doors finally slid open. They ran out and headed straight for the receptionist's office, which ended up to be a few hallways away. Unfortunately, the stairs to the basement were open and zombies trudged here and there, looking for prey. "We should've blocked the stairs before getting Maddy!" Yahoot said, slapping himself. "No time for that now…" Zap answered, getting freaked again. "Well, might as well get rid of some of 'em. Besides, the living need a clear exit" Match said as he began to run toward a small group of the walking dead. The Scot plowed through them as though they were bowling pins. Zap grabbed the guitar he had on his back and started to swing it at the dead like an ax. "Yah! No wonder they call electric guitars 'axes' sometimes" he said, sending a head flying off of a wandering corpse. Yahoot began using some strange monk techniques. "You're dead again…" he chimes as he poked a zombie at a pressure point in the neck, causing it to fall down, as if boneless. "…and you…" he jammed his open palm into the chest of another, crushing it's decaying heart. "…and let's not forget you…" he contorted his body backward so that his head is in between his feet, which are still standing. Then, he lets his feet spring up, kicking a female zombie in the chin as he straightens his body out.

By this time, Match had reached the receptionist's office and bowled over the zombie lurking within, still carrying Maddy. A few moments later, his voice could be heard throughout the entire hospital. "Evacuate! Evacuate! This is not a joke! Zombies everywhere! Evacuate while ye all can! If there are still injured people who cannot move, wheel them out somehow! Use the elevators! Zombies flooded the stairs down here!" and he kept going… Zap and Yahoot had just smashed the last of the zombies just in time to notice more of them coming up the stairs from the basement. "Argh! We need to do something about those stairs!" Zap groaned, tired from fighting.

But Yahoot was already on it. He saw a pair of vending machines to the left of the stairs and decided to knock them over to block the dead. Yahoot quickly studied the machines, as if thinking of a quick way to knock them down. "What're ya doin', man? Ya hungry now, of all times? They're makin' a mosh pit outta the stairway!" Zap snapped, crushing an incoming zombie's ribs with the guitar. "Almost everything has a weak spot, which can be exploited to make an object crumble or just fall over. Hmmm…" he replied. Then, he focused for a few seconds before bending down and upwardly smacking the left side of the snack-receiving slot. Amazingly, the machine tilted to the right and fell down, crushing a zombie or two while partially blocking the doorway. Zap just gawked, jaw dropped. "Wha…? How…? What the?" he stuttered, his lower jaw unable to close. "Like I said, almost everything has a weak spot. Part of which deals with the object's center of gravity and where most of the weight is. Only the most-focused monks can exploit it just by hitting it. Otherwise, you can't do anything with it" the monk explained as he tipped the other machine, which fell on the first one and is now lying at a diagonal angle. "Hmm… we need to push this one on top of the first one. Help me, would you?" Yahoot asked Zap. Stupefied, Zap nodded and began to push.

A few moments later, they saw the first batch of civilians run out of the elevators and out the exit, panicking. Match, still carrying Maddy, ran over to them. He put the pink-haired half-zombie down and helped his friends set the vending machine up. After 5 minutes of grunting, groaning, pushing, and the occasional zombie-fighting, they managed to block the stairway. "Phew… I need to lift weights more often…" Zap panted. "About time you realized that there's more to life than just slacking and playing that guitar" Yahoot remarked. Zap was about to make a snappy comeback, but he let it drop, noticing more panicking people flock out. "Ye think we should get out o here?" Match said, picking Maddy up again. "Might as well. We did all we could here. Blocked the zombies, warned the living, made a clear exit for them… Yep, everything except calling the cops" Zap said, cleaning the dead blood off his guitar.

And so they left the hospital and drove off in their van. Mr. Match dug out his cell phone and alerted the cops of the zombie trouble at the hospital while watching over Maddy. Little did the foursome know that the hospital wasn't the only place in Dentech with undead trouble…

> > > > > >

Back in Castlevania, the 5 heroes each found a jack-in port after they went through the doors they chose. They jacked in their navis using their wireless transmitters, so that they can help them while roaming the dark castle. MegaMan landed in a NetSwamp, surrounded by very murky water and toxic gas. Mega put on his face mask to block out the toxic fumes and began exploring, ready to take on any virus. He sets his sights on a powerful Jelly virus that oozed out of the boggy water.

GutsMan found himself in a vast graveyard, with crumbling graves as far as the eye can see. "Where do Guts go?" he wondered, feeling a bit lost. He noticed that there were groups of Spooky and Shadow viruses spread out throughout the entire cemetery. "Brrr… Guts no like cemeteries… But Guts will battle!" he declared, morphing his hands into hammers and began attacking a small cluster of Shadows.

IceMan was in deep trouble now. Just after being jacked in, he found himself surrounded by Volcano, HardHead, and Quaker viruses. He barely dodges a Volcano's flame attack and shoots icicles at one of the HardHeads. He lands on a platform and looks around. He sees that he's in some sort of dark void, dotted with floating islands and platforms. "Man… Am I in Purgatory?" he wondered, dodging a HardHead's attack. He froze the offending virus and moved on, hoping that he doesn't fall into the black hole below him…

A feeling of despair hit Glyde as he searched the area. He noticed that he was in some sort of city ruins, filled with broken down buildings and skyscrapers, cracked and busted streets, and rusted out cars. He flew about, stealthily sniping the Mettaurs, Canodumbs, and Swordies that roamed the streets below. However, he ran into some close-quarters combat when a squadron of Elebees and KillerEyes dive-bombed at him. "Hey! This is my airspace!" he snapped, shooting at the airborne foes.

ProtoMan found himself in a ninja's paradise, slashing down every virus that stood in his way in the dungeon maze. "Hah. Too easy" the red-clad warrior said, cutting a Spiky in half. "Wily needs to retire" he added, snickering as he took a right turn at the next intersection. He found more viruses blocking his path. He ran through the corridor, the viruses turning to fodder before the powerful navi.

> > > > > >

Lan, having finally whipped the last monster in the hallway, panted. "Whew… So many monsters…" he grumbled, looking at a corpse of a gargoyle that had tried to rip his head off. He sighed and went through the door to the next room, only to barely dodge a sword attack by a large, possessed suit of armor. He noticed that there were other possessed armors trudging toward him, weapons drawn. "So… The ol' poltergeist trick… I've no problem with that" said he as his sword was drawn in one hand and his whip cracking at a nearby armor with the other hand. Lan wrapped the whip around an armor and pulled so that he flung himself toward it. He decapitated the lifeless suit of armor with one swipe as he passed it, causing it to wander aimlessly as if blinded. With the whip still wrapped around the headless armor, he pulled again. It came flying toward him this time. With a gentle flick, he released the flying armor before cutting it vertically in half with his sword.

He spent the next 15 minutes dispatching the rest of the armors since they all decided to surround him. Exploiting their weaknesses, he used a variety of whip stunts to get in quick hits with the sword, since the armors were pretty slow. Finally, he got rid of the last armor by luring it into the center of the room and then cutting the rope attached to the chandelier, sending it crashing down on the bucket of scrap metal. Panting, he looked at the trashed room and began to wonder how he suddenly became so skilled at fighting. 'Must've come from watching MegaMan battle or somethin'' he thought, shrugging. With that job done, Lan made his way to the next door. "Wonder what's next?" he said to himself before opening the door. He found himself in another cooridor.

Unfortunately, he saw a Fire Ogre at the opposite end of the hallway, carrying a big metal club that spurted fire every couple of seconds. "I had to ask…" Lan muttered, drawing his pistols…

> > > > > >

Chaud, after exploring through a few halls and rooms and destroying quite a few undead, found himself in a dank hall, which reeked lightly of corpses, urine, and an unknown stench. The entrance to a dungeon. 'Bet the women were taken here…' he thought, keeping his Uzi drawn. He marched onward, occasionally shooting down the occasional Hell Hound or a group of Mechanical Lizard-Men. A half an hour later, just after he impaled a troll to a wall with his machine-crossbow, he heard groans… human female groans. He ran down the hall, thinking that he'd succeeded in finding the prisoners. Indeed he was right as he found cell after cell after cell, full to the brink with women. 'Dracula must've wanted a year's supply of blood' he thought as he looked at a few faces, all of them were terrified and in agony.

"Relax, girls. I'm on your side. Hmm… Now where are the keys to the cells?" he said to them. "We dunno…" a young, attractive 22 year old said, her voice quiet with fear. "Some huge creep has 'em… We last saw him go that way…" said a panicky 36 year old, pointing toward the farthest end of the dungeon. "Please… Ya gotta help us all…" said a very buxom 19 year old who appeared to have been at some crazy co-ed party when the attack happened, judging by her uber-revealing clothes, which consisted of just a silky bra and panties. The rest of the prisoners groaned in a cry for help, begging him to release them. "Calm down, ladies. I'll help ya. I'll beat down this 'Dungeon Master' and teach him how to treat women!" he said, walking farther down the dungeon path.

As he walked, the cheers of the women of Dentech supporting him and rooting for him could be heard many halls back. 'I hope I can win. I am so not accustomed to losing, especially when I'm trying to impress girls…' he thought, a bit of his ego showing as he listened to the chants and cheers of the many, many women…

> > > > > >

'Where the heck am I now? Some sort of crazy theater?' Yai thought after stumbling into what appeared to be a theater lobby. She had been sniping and slicing Wily's and Dracula's minions while wandering through hallways and rooms. Her pockets were slightly bulging with the items she had found in some of the rooms. She looked around and found the typical things for an old-fashioned theater lobby. Ticket vendor, check. Snack bar, check. A wraith manning the cash register of the snack bar, che-Wait… Yai drew her katana and blocked a shadow dagger that the wraith had thrown at her right when she noticed it.

The wraith hovered away from the register, stalking her practically. She followed it with her eyes, calmly walking around. She figured that her katana won't do much, since the wraith probably wouldn't come close enough. She sheathed her swords and brought out her sniper rifle. She wouldn't have the element of surprise that the sniper rifle is usually used for, since the wraith saw it, but at least she could shoot at it. She aimed at the floating wraith, which seemed to be thinking of a plan while keeping an eye on her. She fired at it when she had locked in on it. However, the wraith disappeared.

She began to wonder where it went when she heard a gentle sort of 'whoosh' sound behind her. Diving aside, she dodged a pair of shadow daggers that were heading for her back. Getting up and looking behind her, Yai saw the wraith once again calmly floating, strategizing. 'This one's gonna be tough… It's taunting me' she thought, a bit annoyed.

And so, Yai decided to switch arenas by running into the closest movie room, where the lights were out, as expected. Yai immediately dove in between a couple rows of seats and started to crawl on the ground. She was glad that there was no mysterious gunk gluing her down. As the wraith floated down the aisle, looking for its prey, Yai sneaked a peek at it. Noticing that its back was turned toward her, she got up and silently snuck out. That's when she had an idea of how to at least distract the floating ghoul. Finding the door to the projector rooms, she went through it and climbed the flight of stairs leading toward the projector machines. She opened the door marked Theater 2 (the one she was just in) only to find a disgruntled zombie, anxious to get out. After quickly slicing it in the gut (closing her eyes to the geyser of blood that followed), Yai went to the projector and flicked it on.

Back in the theater, the wraith was getting annoyed. But then the projector went on and started showing the movie. The ghoul turned and watched as the biggest movie-going annoyance of any human, living or dead, started… endless ads and previews…Ad after ad after preview after ad after preview… On and on…

The wraith watched… and watched… and watched… After a few minutes worth of ads, it started to get angry, but kept watching anyway, hoping for a good movie. During all that watching, Yai had enough time to 1) make sure the wraith was completely distracted, 2) draw her sniper rifle, and 3) aim it at the undead's head. She smirked and whispered "Enjoy your last ad, dead-head" as she pulled the trigger. The wraith screamed, both in agony and utter annoyance, as the bullet lodged itself in the back of the wraith's head, killing it. She smirked on the way back down to ground level and went to search for the way to the next room…

> > > > > >

"How the hell did I get into the WWE!" wondered a slightly confused Dex aloud as he arrived from the last hall into what seemed to be a gladiator-style arena with a pro-wrestling ring in the center, a huge crowd of undead booing and hissing at him. He looked toward the ring and saw what appeared to be a flesh-rotten, mechanical muscleman, leering at him. "Man, everybody wants a piece o me, today…" he grumbled as he drew his spinning blades and walked toward the ring.

He slid in and got up, only to quickly sidestep an incoming punch from the apparently battle-happy monstrosity of muscle. Then, knowing that the demon pulled a cheap tactic by attacking before the bell, a skeleton outside the ring clanged the bell to begin the match officially. Dex countered the sucker-punch by repeatedly punching the demon in the back with his spinning saws out, giving the creep quite a few bloody cuts on his back. Before Dex could throw another punch, though, the cyborg swung around, backhanding Dex on the cheek with a mechanical fist, knocking him down. "Ow! Why you…!" he muttered as he climbed to his feet and, after quickly disposing his blades, grappled the monster.

For a few moments, it seemed to be a test of strength. The monster, with its enhanced strength, was winning, but that didn't mean that Dex was without any hope. As he suddenly figured out an idea, he kneed it in the gut, ran toward the ropes, bounced off of them, leaping toward the mecha and flooring it with a Body Slam. "Time for some reprogramming!" Dex shouted as he redrew his blades and struck the mechanical side of his head, trying to get to the all-important circuitry. But even though he did manage to cut into the head a little, the monster grabbed him by his arms and threw him off. Dex got up again to see the monster standing back on his feet. After a few more minutes of punching, grappling, getting hit, dodging, and using wrestling moves, Dex began fumbling around for something good to use against the slightly-damaged powerhouse and felt the glass of a bottle ("I'm surprised these aren't broken yet" mumbled Dex). He pulled it out to reveal a bottle of holy water. At this, he smirked and kept the bottle in his shirt. Then, he ran at it and punched the monster again, ducking an attack right after. Then, he gave the cyborg a kick to the 'nuts' ('When in Rome…' thought Dex, remembering the cheap shot at the beginning) and then climbed a turnbuckle while the freak was obviously distracted.

Dex spent a moment looking down at the recovering muscle-zombie from the top of the turnbuckle. Then, he grabbed the bottle of holy water, took it out, and jumped off, ready to smash the bottle. However, the large ghoul saw this and took a few steps backward, causing Dex to smash the holy water on the floor, breaking the bottle and creating a puddle. "Dang it!" muttered the fat teen as he rolled aside from the zombie's next attack. Then, an idea struck him. He ran past him, dodging the zombie's attempt to grab him by the neck to chokeslam him, toward the ropes opposite him. The zombie followed, completely forgetting about the puddle of holy water behind it. Right before Dex could bounce off the ropes, he jumped, landed on the middle rope, bounced off of it, and smashed himself, cannonball-style, on the zombie's chest. The force of the blow sent the living corpse falling down and forced it to land in the mess of holy water, causing it to writhe around in severe agony as Dex pinned him.

After the crowd grudgingly gave him a count to 3, the bulky cyborg caught aflame and burned in the blessed liquid. As the ring bell clanged again, Dex taunted the crowd of zombies by mooning them, but however, he grew to regret it when the undead started to throw random items at him, from beer cans to the old bones of other undead. "Hah. Losers! Wily sucks!" Dex called to the crowd, egging them on as he exited the ring and moved on to the next room, the flames of his opponent's remains dying down. "Hehehe… That was something different. I finally managed to throw my weight around! Wonder what's next" he thought aloud, proud of himself for at least proving that he can indeed fight physically, despite being overweight…

> > > > > >

Tory, wearing the gauntlets he chose, had just punched his way past a small group of minotaurs and ran into the next room, which happens to be a large dining room containing one really long table and at least a hundred chairs, when he encountered his next set of opponents. All 100 chairs in the dining room were occupied by armored knight-like ghouls, who immediately got up and charged at Tory. Drawing his lance, he jabbed the first one, sliced at the second one, and tripped the third before his momentum was cut off by the fourth DeadKnight, who grabbed him from behind. Tory, being the short one, was picked up easily by his captor, but that proved to be a huge mistake after Tory kicked the DeadKnight's ally in the skull and then jammed the lance down his captor's chest. He then flinged the corpse into an approaching gathering of knights, bowling them over.

Tory then jumped onto the table and ran down it, defeating any zombie unlucky enough to get in the way of his lance. However, the lead knight, a taller zombie wearing black armor, also climbed onto the table and started a charge. They met halfway, lances clashing and sparks flying. Tory stepped back and went to attack, but the black knight blocked again and countered with a kick. The short teenager jumped the kick and struck downward with his lance, but again, the knight blocked. Tory kicked this time, but he hit nothing but armor, which hurt. "Yeow! Dude, that smarts!" he growled, hopping backward with one foot, the knight trying to take advantage of this. Seeing the knight charge, Tory leaped up, pointed his staff downward, clung to it, and stabbed the black knight in the head as it passed below him, bouncing off of it like he was riding a pogo stick. The knight fell down and slid into a pack of the regular DeadKnights, defeated.

After disposing of the last few DeadKnights… well, let's just say that Tory did not want to stay for a bite to eat…

> > > > > >

Elsewhere, things in Dentech City were recovering at a slow pace. Ever since a couple of hours ago, when the Army's Commander got orders from a secret higher power to mobilize, the Dentech Militia has been patrolling the city and its borders. The citizens were warned to stay indoors and most of them have since followed that order, except for the occasional emergency errand. There were some generous donations of cash to the city's government to help with the recovery, but not even the mayor has any idea who donated it. (Rumors spread that Magnets Gauss gave the cash) But not all is well within the borders of the City of Dentech. Police and SWAT teams were called to all of the city's hospitals, due to the fact that their morgues were bursting with zombies and mutated dead, which consisted mostly of those who have fallen to zombies in the major attack.

Match and company had just gotten past another police-surrounded trouble spot when they finally decided that they should head back to their home and try to figure out how to take care of the now-80 undead Maddy. Match did his best to make sure that her body didn't rot out with all the other zombies by using everything from a First-Aid kit to her beauty supplies and lotions (which she always carried with her). He had fairly good luck with that job, although he couldn't help that her skin was now extremely grayish-pale, her eyes looked soulless, and she felt cold beyond belief. She had also apparently lost her ability to speak, although she easily recognized Match with an approving groan and let him help her. But the voiceless part seemed to be somewhat fine with Match, since that made Match unwilling to speak, keeping his moping and grumbling inside where his mind can beat itself up about it for not knowing how to save her. But at the same time, he wished he could hear Maddy at least reprimand him for not responding to her questions or comments. Even the typically-insensitive Count Zap felt a lot of sympathy for Maddy and Match at this point.

"Dammit! We need to get her some help, man! This does not rock!" Zap raved, having had enough of seeing two of best friends in such terrible pain. "I know…" Yahoot muttered, driving on and thinking. Then, an idea hit him. "Miyu the Psychic. She knows a lot about mythological stuff. Maybe she knows something about curing zombies!" he said, wondering why that idea didn't cross his mind earlier. "Yeah! S'worth a shot! Let's go then!" Zap said, strumming a mournful-yet-hopeful riff on his guitar as Yahoot made a turn at the next intersection and headed toward Miyu's mystic shop.

Soon, they arrived at Miyu's and got out, Match carrying Maddy. However, when they got to the door, they saw a "Closed" sign on it. "CLOSED? What the? Of all the times for her to lock up, she has to choose now?" Zap ranted, banging on her door with his fist. "Open up! Emergency!" "You know, that's not going to help…" grumbled Yahoot, annoyed yet again by his easily angered friend.

After a few minutes of Zap's knocking, a car pulled up, parked, and out stepped Miyu, not surprised by the sight of customers, as her senses felt their arrival at her shop. "May I help you?" she asked, as calm as if it's another regular day in Dentech. "Yeah… It's me girlfriend, Miyu… Bitten by a zombie when Wily attacked… We figured ye'd know somethin' 'bout zombie cures or somethin'…" explained Match, showing Maddy to the psychic. "I tried to at least prevent the 'rotting skin' part…" he added. "Hmm… I've been doing some thinking since I heard the first reports of some of the dead becoming zombies. I think I might know something, although with what's happening at the hospitals, we might need a lot more of this possible cure…" she said, now sounding grave as she unlocked her shop and invited them in.

> > > > > >

Agent Smith.EXE, bored out of his mind, decided to monitor the progress of the 5 intruder Navis that have made their way through different parts of Wily's Dark Network. He snickered as MegaMan fell into a pit, the home of a giant mutated alligator with 6 muscled arms and 2 human-like legs to stand on. He sneered as Glyde, now Style-Changed into WoodShield Mode, was in the middle of an aerial dogfight with a gigantic skeletal raven. He frowned as IceMan put the freeze on a deformed semi-transparent devil from the void. He growled as ProtoMan finally managed to cut a fat, metallic, undead orc into pieces of data. He was infuriated when he saw that GutsMan had managed to defeat the six murderous limbs of a huge, undead, mutilated zombie with HeatGuts Style and a pair of huge hammers.

"Damn… Should've made those morons stronger. Then again, they were a bunch of incompetent meatheads anyway, so no major loss…" the agent navi said to no one in particular as he paced back and forth in front of his security monitors. He mentally assessed the strength of his opponents, knowing that MegaMan was still no match for him. A smirk flashed on his face for a moment as he remembered cutting an arm off of the Blue Bomber and kidnapping his attractive girlfriend. Then, he remembered the few minutes in the real world, tying Roll to a black crucifix. He couldn't help but wonder how MegaMan would react, seeing his precious Roll held hostage like that. He also couldn't resist seeing how lovely Roll's face would become with a look of extreme agony on it. Agent Smith.EXE lived on causing pain, even when it comes to his love life…

> > > > > >

As Smith pondered, Gauss the crossdresser snickered. It was practically public knowledge that he had given monetary donations and hired construction workers to help the effort to restore Dentech City. However, no one but himself and MagnetMan knew that he was personally stopping the Mayor from spending one cent on the reconstruction (thanks to some bank hacking) or stopping his written or verbal orders from being carried out (thanks to a few 'accidents' involving MagnetMan). Of course, the Mayor had tried, but that just wouldn't fit into the old man's schemes if he had succeeded…

"Soon, the people will figure out that the Mayor apparently hasn't done one thing to help the reconstruction efforts… Then, I shall buy my way into being Mayor with the help of the people and I can rule this city the way that I want to! I respect Dr. Wily, but it's about damn time that I start making my own reputation! Hahahahahaha!" Gauss gloated, spinning around so that the frilly lower half of his very-girly, ribbon covered, pink dress spun out beautifully.

> > > > > >

Chaud had just kicked the huge, wooden door down, surprising the two occupants. He saw a huge, fat, stupid-looking troll with puke-green skin, large yellow fangs, a rusted sword, and one hell of a bad stench. It was preying on a defenseless looking girl who appears to be about Chaud's age. She was an attractive blonde with a cute face, a curvy lithe body, and flowing golden hair that flowed down her back. She had on a one-piece outfit of dark and light purple that looked like she was some sort of dancer. But what Chaud was concerned about was the fact that the troll was just about to attack her.

Immediately, he barraged the foul atrocity with a pack of arrows from his machine-crossbow, which dug into its back and caused it to forget about the girl it was terrorizing. It charged at Chaud, who jumped aside and fired his Uzi at its face. The troll, annoyed, swung its sword at Chaud, who rolled aside and got up. "Ok, that's enough out of you, ugly!" Chaud snapped, shooting its sword hand with a few more arrows while shooting its face with bullets. It dropped the sword and started swatting at its face, as if trying to swat away a mosquito. The rich teen picked up the rusty sword and threw it at the troll, successfully sticking it into the troll's groin. It howled and stumbled back as Chaud fired more arrows at it, hitting him in his chest and piercing its heart. The beast was silenced, dead before its head hit the ground.

"For such a big guy, you sure were easy to take down…" he said, slightly disappointed at the lack of a real challenge. Then, he approached the girl, who looked scared out of her wits. "D…Don't hurt me…!" she squeaked, curling up into a ball. "Hey… Relax. I'm here to save you, not hurt you more. Why would I rescue you from that creature if I wanted to hurt you?" the skunk-haired boy asked, kneeling down to get a better look at her. She lifted her head and looked, face to face, at him. "Really? You saved me?" she said, apparently surprised. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I?" he replied, trying to sound casual but actually confused by her shock. "Because… nobody cares about me…" she mumbled, her head lowering again. "Well, now ya got somebody that cares. So let's go, ok? We got to get the rest of the women out and then we have to get them to the plane" he said, patting her on a shoulder a bit. He then rose and went to the dead troll to find the keys to the dungeon cells.

"Thanks…" the girl said, standing up. "I'm Michelle, but you can call me Mish or Mishy or whatever nickname you want" she said, starting to get over her fear. "Oh. I think Michelle will be fine. My name's Chaud" he replied, as he looked for the keys.

However, Chaud didn't notice the succubus fangs that she unintentionally bared as she smiled sweetly at him, nor did he look at her when her "dancer's outfit" fluttered and stretched out for a moment to reveal that the 'clothes' are actually huge bat wings and that she was wearing just a dark purple bra-like top and panties of the same color…

Michelle approached him from behind, still smiling at him, as her wings quietly folded around her, becoming her 'outfit' again.

"Nice to meet you, Chaud."

> > > > > >

A/N: Finally! Chapter 6 is done! Whew… God, I hate writer's block! Such a curse. Anyways, I hope you all like this. I apologize again for such a long delay and I'll be working on Chapter 7 soon. Promise! And please, please review!

Next Chapter: Chaud and a succubus? MegaMan and a mermaid? (What about Roll?) GutsMan and a zombie woman? Why the heck is everybody pairing up now, of all times? Or are these non-human/non-Navi women their next foes? Plus, what will happen when Wily starts his second attack on Dentech? What will Beef's Agents and the Ex-World 3 do? Will Maddy be cured or will she call a coffin her bed? And is Agent Smith an S&M pervert? All this and more in the next chapter "Love vs. Pain", which will be up soon (if I'm completely cured of this accursed writer's block…).


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